National Records of Scotland holds a wealth of military records from many conflicts dating back to the start of the seventeenth century. As these records sometimes reach us in a disorganised state, our archivists catalogue them to make them more accessible to the public. We recently began a project to catalogue First World War Pensions … Continue reading Home From The Front
Records & Responsibilities
In December, the Keeper of the Records of Scotland (the Keeper) agreed the Records Management Plan (RMP) of Food Standards Scotland. This was the 207th RMP to be agreed by the Keeper but more significantly, it was the first RMP agreed for an authority which didn’t appear on the original Schedule of the Public Records … Continue reading Records & Responsibilities
Criminal case papers brought to life by University students
This Saturday, 3rd February, legal students from the Universities of Aberdeen and Dundee will be delving almost 130 years into the past and, using High Court and Crown Office archive records held by the NRS, will stage a mock trial of a notorious Dundee crime which resulted in the city’s last ever execution. William Bury … Continue reading Criminal case papers brought to life by University students
Life expectancy in Scottish areas
How does where you live affect your lifespan? In September, NRS published life expectancy estimates which showed that a boy born in Scotland in 2014-2016 could expect to live until he was 77 years old and a girl could expect to live until she was 81 years old. Today NRS publish life expectancy in Scottish … Continue reading Life expectancy in Scottish areas
Feline Christmassy?
This year's Christmas e-card from National Records of Scotland features one of the more light-hearted items from our Register House Plans series – a ballroom filled with cats enjoying a Christmas party, dancing, gossiping and having fun. We think that this could be the item containing the most cats in the NRS collections! In creating … Continue reading Feline Christmassy?
Aiming for quality: selection, capture, QA and preservation of the NRS Web Archive
This week we dig into the procedures that power the NRS Web Continuity Service. We are a multi-faceted service, dealing with numerous stakeholders and subject areas. With that in mind, we need to ensure our processes are efficient and effective, to help us deliver a high quality web archive. But what do we mean by … Continue reading Aiming for quality: selection, capture, QA and preservation of the NRS Web Archive
Annual Population Survey – Estimates
How many non-British nationals are living in Scotland, and how has that changed in the year since the EU Referendum? Today, National Records of Scotland released updated population estimates by country of birth and nationality from the Annual Population Survey (APS). These statistics provide information on the number of people living in Scotland and allow … Continue reading Annual Population Survey – Estimates
The NRS Web Archive and the NRS Web Continuity Service
So far in this blog series we have discovered government websites’ value as public records, and explored the world of web archiving. This week we combine these two threads, to introduce the NRS Web Archive and our Web Continuity Service. The NRS Web Continuity Service went live in February 2017. Delivered as part of NRS’s … Continue reading The NRS Web Archive and the NRS Web Continuity Service
What is web archiving? History, technology, collections
Following on from last week's introductory blog on web archiving this post takes a broader look at the technical and collecting environment of web archiving, as well as a brief look at its history. The World Wide Web was pioneered in the late 1980s to help share information more efficiently and effectively. Needless to say this … Continue reading What is web archiving? History, technology, collections
Voices from our Archives – Ewart Alan Mackintosh (1893 – 1917)
Image: Wikimedia Commons Today marks the centenary of the death on 21 November 1917 of the Scottish soldier poet Lieutenant Ewart Alan Mackintosh MC in the Battle of Cambrai. His death is listed in ScotlandsPeople, among the Minor Records (a copy of the volume ‘Officers Died in the Great War 1914-1919’, HMSO, 1919). Mackintosh was … Continue reading Voices from our Archives – Ewart Alan Mackintosh (1893 – 1917)
Open Book 