Writers' Museum

Today, we went to the Writers' Museum in Edinburgh. It primarily concentrates on the lives of Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, all Scottish authors. A temporary exhibit space features different authors, too. While we were there, it focused on Ian Rankin, author of the Detective Rebus series based in Edinburgh.

The house was built in 1622. In 1907, it was donated to the city to use as a museum. Inside the building, we were able to see some items from the different authors' lives including a printing press at the top of the building (unfortunately the audio explanation about it was broken), a set of walking sticks, Burns' writing desk, a dining table where Scott wrote some of his novels, pictures of Stevenson throughout his life, and much more.

I found the Rankin and Rebus exhibit interesting. I had heard of this series before but had never read it. After going to this exhibit, however, my interest was caught and I think I will. The first book Rebus appeared in was called Knots and Crosses. Originally, the author planned to kill that character off but his editor convinced him not to. While researching for Knots and Crosses, Rankin himself was briefly considered a suspect in a real life case in Edinburgh that was similar to his plot.


When I was getting ready to leave the museum, I happened to see this sign on the stairway. "Warning: During reconstruction it was found that this stair had been built with steps of varying heights. This was sometimes done in old houses in order that persons unfamiliar with the dwelling might betray their presence by stumbling. The feature has been retained."

National Archives of Scotland

Today, we visited the National Archives of Scotland. There was major reconstruction work going on at the General Register House so this picture is from their website.

The National Archives owns three buildings: the General Register House, the West Register House and the Thomas Thomson House. The General Register House was opened in the late 1780s and was built specifically to house the records of Scotland. In 1970, West Register House was acquired for more storage space. By the 1980s, still more space was needed and the Thomas Thomson House was built. It opened in 1995 for record storage and is almost full today.
The National Archives is open to the public and, because it is funded by the government, does not charge to use the records. The Archives houses records from the 12th century up to the present. The materials vary widely from vellum documents to digital copies and everything in-between. It houses state and parliamentary papers, valuation rolls, church records, wills, private records, taxation records, family and estate records, and much more.

The archivist who talked to us gave us a number of helpful websites about the archives and the services it provides: the NAS site, the SAFS site, the SCAN site, Scottish Wills site, and a self-help guide to reading documents.

The Archives is working on a number of digitization projects in order to preserve the heavily used delicate records they own. For example, they are digitizing Church of Scotland records which are very useful for family history researchers. They currently are working on the Registers Archive Conversion Project which is digitizing land registers, another heavily used collection. Another project they are working on it the Image Library Project in conjunction with the National Library of Scotland.

The final part of the lecture was showing us actual documents. One letter was from Mary, Queen of Scots, to her mother. Another was a church record scroll which contained the first written record they (the Archive, at least) have from 1494. Someone was being paid with "aqua vitae" or water of life which is what we know of as whiskey. It was also interesting to see a poem about the British Railway system which went through the alphabet. Some of the lines are still true today!

National Library of Scotland

Today, we visited the National Library of Scotland. Interestingly enough, it is located across the street from Edinburgh's public library.

The library has a very varied collection, everything including 3 million maps, musical recordings, film archives, government documents, manuscripts, and books. Because the library is a national depository, they get a copy of every book published. Every week 8,000 works are added to the collection. Like the British Library, the National Library of Scotland is dedicated to collecting, preserving and providing access to materials.

This library had the exhibit that I liked the most of all the places we visited. The John Murray Archive is a recent addition to the library. John Murray opened a publishing firm in 1768. Seven generations later, his decedents sold the publishing firm's collection of materials to the National Library for £31.2 million. Some of these materials included letters to and from Murray and his authors, others were handwritten manuscripts, and publishing equipment.

According to the archive's brochure, "John Murray published many of the most important thinkers and writers of the past two centuries: people whose words helped shape the modern world." Some of these important thinkers and writers were Charles Darwin, Jane Austen, and Lord Byron.

The library and archive have begun a large digitizing project with a goal of digitizing 15,000 items. They want to make sure they are able to minimize the damage to fragile items and make the archive's resources available to a larger number of people. Their goal is to be finished with cataloging the entire archive within 3 years. Because the collection was largely uncataloged when it arrived at the library, they are still making interesting discoveries. They are 1 year into this project.

The archive did not want to lock themselves into the traditional idea of an archive. They wanted to make an interesting and interactive exhibit for visitors to enjoy. In many archives, the displays are "text-heavy" which can become dull after a while. Items on display need to be put into context for visitors and sometimes the documents on display need to be translated or typed out so that it is legible. All of this contributes to more text for visitors to read and a display which might not engage their interest.

The design of this archive exhibit took 3 years to complete and was created by the library, researchers (like John Murray VII), and designers. They made sure to visit other libraries and museums to see how others were making their displays. They determined that there are 4 characteristics of a good display for them. 1) Materials should be displayed in a theatrical way. 2) object rich displays with minimal labels were more interactive. 3) Use of light and shadow could be very dramatic. 4) They wanted to teach people more about the publishing trade. The purpose of the archive was to show the documents/manuscripts, help visitors understand the people behind them, give context and provide audio transcription/narration.

I think they did a great job making an interesting exhibit. The exhibit was really kind of dark with these glass cases filled with clothing, manuscripts/letters, and other objects which represented the person who the case is about. For instance, one woman who wrote a cookery book had a dress and cap, letters to Murray, and a mixing bowl and spoon in her case. Inside these cases were no labels and no writing other than that on the manuscripts. Instead, there was a touchscreen in front of the case where you could select which item you wanted to know more about and the information would come up on the screen. Also, the item you were looking at would be highlighted in the case. I loved how creative it all was. Below is a sketch I made to explain the cases a little bit more.


In addition to the cases, they also had little tidbits of information about the world of publishing. At the end of it exhibit, there was a "table of publishing" (I don't know if this is actually what they called it). You could "publish" your own book but tapping on the table like a giant touch screen. It was so much fun to play with and you got some pretty funny titles.

As I said before, this was probably my favourite exhibit. It grabbed your attention and kept you involved.