Conservator Gloria Conti looks at a fun item from our archives and tells us about the challenges of conserving a poster that would have been designed for use for only a short period of time... Sometimes jobs can feel like a treat, and what’s better than a fun job just before Christmas? In preparation for … Continue reading Conserving Christmases
Tartan on TV
Today, Ross Truslove looks at tartan designs in the Scottish Register of Tartans, which was created by the Scottish Parliament in 2008 as a single independent register to promote and preserve information about historic and contemporary tartans from Scotland and throughout the world… This design is the MacDuck tartan - recorded with a predecessor of … Continue reading Tartan on TV
What is Conservation?
Today, NRS Head of Conservation Linda Ramsay explains what her team's role is and looks back at the history of paper conservation in Scotland... Public interest in objects and their conservation and preservation has never been stronger. ”Before and afters“ are endlessly fascinating, connecting us to our past and history, and next to cookery and … Continue reading What is Conservation?
We Don’t Just Do Paper: Depositing Digital Records
On World Digital Preservation Day, archivist Eve Wright (below right, with NRS digital capacity planning lead Joanne Watson) tells us how NRS is working to record Scotland's records for the future - both records that are created on paper and in other formats... Today marks World Digital Preservation Day where institutions around the world advocate … Continue reading We Don’t Just Do Paper: Depositing Digital Records
Doors Open Days: The Court Doodler
As part of the first ever digital Doors Open Days, archivist Dr Alison Rosie looks at ink sketches of national symbols found in an Exchequer record from the 1530s and explains their significance... Household Book of James V: E31/6 The accounts of King James V’s pantry, kitchen, buttery and cellars for the years 1525-1539 survive … Continue reading Doors Open Days: The Court Doodler
Doors Open Days
2020 marks the 30th anniversary of Doors Open Days, Scotland’s largest free festival and celebration of architecture, culture and heritage. NRS archivist Tessa Spencer explains the background to this festival in Scotland and our involvement, as well as a brief history of our oldest buildings and highlights taking part in the first ever digital DOD. … Continue reading Doors Open Days
Locked Down: The Inveraray Jail album
NRS Conservator Jacqueline Thorburn is one of the team responsible for conserving items held within the NRS archives. Here, she tells us about a fascinating artefact of Victorian Scotland that she has worked on – a small book containing details and photographs of inmates of Inverarary Jail… Front cover and title page, before treatment This … Continue reading Locked Down: The Inveraray Jail album
From the NRS Archives: A Royal Wedding
NRS archivist Dr Alan Borthwick tells us about the marriage contract of Margaret of Scotland and King Erik II of Norway, and the fateful voyage of their daughter Margaret in 1290 – and how, but for a chance of fate, the histories of three countries might have played out very differently… In 1281, Margaret (1261-1283), … Continue reading From the NRS Archives: A Royal Wedding
From the NRS Archives: Scuttling of the German Fleet, 1919
At the end of the First World War, the German Navy surrendered their warships to the Allied forces. The fate of the vessels was to be decided by the victorious powers but the ships’ remaining skeleton crews had other ideas. Archivist Veronica Schreuder looked into the NRS archives to see what she could discover... ‘As … Continue reading From the NRS Archives: Scuttling of the German Fleet, 1919
Voices From Our Archives: Pandemic in Paisley, 1832
Pandemics and major public health emergencies are very rare events in modern Scotland but they were once far more common, particularly in eras preceding modern housing and sanitation. Archivist Bruno Longmore looks at what a letter he found in our archives in the 2000s tells us about a deadly cholera outbreak in Paisley in the … Continue reading Voices From Our Archives: Pandemic in Paisley, 1832
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