ScotlandsPeople Centre to re-open on Monday

The ScotlandsPeople Centre (www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/visit-us/scotlandspeople-centre), which has been closed for over a week due to a virus infection on its main computer system, will re-open again on Monday. Here's the NRS announcement (www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2016/customer-notice):

Our ScotlandsPeople search rooms will reopen from 9.00 am on Monday 4 April. We apologise for any inconvenience the closure may have caused and thank you for your patience. Please call 0131 314 4300 for any seat booking enquiries.

Whilst it is great that it will be open, I am unclear as to whether the ScotlandsPeople computer system itself has been sorted out, or if there might be an alternative arrangement in place, perhaps using the previous DIGROS system or microfiche to access records. On the phone yesterday to one of the satellite centres across the country running the same ScotlandsPeople centre system, I was informed that access next week was still looking doubtful due to an attempt to solve the issue in Edinburgh on Thursday not succeeding.

The NRS announcement is fairly vague, and it may well be that the system is now back up and running across the country, the problems having been resolved. But my advice to those trying to access the system at a centre beyond Edinburgh next week is to perhaps call the venue before you go to make sure in advance!

UPDATE: Thanks to Anne Slater at the NRS for clarifying that the system is back up and running, and so should be available at all centres running the ScotlandsPeople service.

Chris

For details on my genealogy guide books, including A Decade of Irish Centenaries: Researching Ireland 1912-1923, Discover Scottish Church Records (2nd edition), Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. My Pinterest account is at https://www.pinterest.com/chrismpaton/.