For most of us working as genies in Scotland, a key resource we often utilise is the Scottish Archive Network catalogue at www.scan.org.uk/catalogue, a project which is administered by the Scottish Council on Archives (www.scottisharchives.org.uk). The site is our equivalent of England's and Wales' Access to Archives portal, aka A2A.
The SCAN catalogue currently provides resources from 52 archives, but the catalogued holdings on it are varied and not complete - in some cases resources are catalogued to item level, in others, only to fond level, but in many cases resources are not included at all. The Scotland Online Catalogue Project is currently being developed as an exciting next stage forward for the archive sector, which will "provide archives across Scotland with an interactive online cataloguing portal with detailed searchable information about holdings". For more on the project, see www.scottisharchives.org.uk/projects/toolsstandards/scotlandonline.
In particular, please do have a look at Caroline Williams' Scotland Online Survey Report from 2011 which sought "to establish the nature and extent of online cataloguing in Scotland and possible approaches to its future development" (see http://www.scottisharchives.org.uk/toolsstandards/scotland_online/the_nations_catalogue_-_scotland_online__september_2011__final_version.pdf).
At present a funding bid is in with the Heritage Lottery Fund for project development funding, for what will be a major development for anyone using historical archives for research.
Chris
My new book, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet, is now available from Pen and Sword. My next Pharos Scottish course, Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the Old Parish Registers, starts May 15th - see http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/scotland-1750-1850-beyond-oprs-starts.html. Time to smash a few brick walls...!
No comments:
Post a Comment