Conference autumn 2023
The Body as Evidence
Soutar Theatre, A K Bell Library, Perth, Thursday 23 November 2023
The topic of the next Scottish Records Association's conference will be ‘The Body as Evidence’ and the Association invites proposals for presentations. For more details see the call for papers.
Conference spring 2023
On the Write Track: making sense of older handwriting
On the Write Track: making sense of older handwriting
The spring 2023 conference of the Scottish Records Association took place on Friday 24 February and was held in conjunction with National Records of Scotland.
The venue was New Register House in Edinburgh. At the morning session a series of talks discussed advances in online palaeography tuition and how Artificial Intelligence can help transcribe manuscripts.
During the afternoon there was an open event where researchers could bring documents they were having problems reading or understanding, to get advice from experienced palaeographers from academic institutions and archives. Also present were societies who publish original sources of Scottish history, showing how their publications can help researchers understand similar records, and how to access other useful sources. There was also a small display of original records from the National Records of Scotland’s archives related to the societies’ publications.
The conference marked the launch of the new edition of ‘Scottish Handwriting 1500-1700: a self-help pack’, published jointly by the Scottish Records Association and National Records of Scotland.
Annual General Meeting 2022
Annual General Meeting 2022
The Annual General Meeting of the Scottish Records Association took place online via Zoom on Thursday 8 December at 12.30pm.
Annual Conference 2022
Annual Conference 2022
Spoken Record: communities and their sound archives
Spoken Record: communities and their sound archives
The 2022 annual conference of the Scottish Records Association took place on 18 May 2022 online and at the Soutar Theatre, AK Bell Library, Perth. It explored how personal testimony and sound archives are used by research projects to record the experiences of people who are connected by similarities in their working lives, geographical location, or other ‘communities of interest’. Recordings from such projects have special significance for these communities, but also extend beyond them and can be re-used in different ways. Presentations were made by historians and others who use recordings in their research, and by archivists, curators and other staff who make sound archives available to researchers.
Programme
Programme
Terry Brotherstone (University of Aberdeen) and Dr Hugo Manson (independent scholar)
The Making of an Oral Archive: how the Aberdeen University / British Library Lives in the [UK North Sea] Oil Industry Collection was created
Dr Valentina Bold (Crichton Trust)
‘Up the Middle Road’: Crichton stories of resilience and recovery
Professor Margaret Bennett (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland)
Perthshire Shuttle-makers and the Ordie Shuttle Mill, Luncarty
Dr Saqib Razzaq (Colourful Heritage Project)
‘The Colourful Heritage Project: preserving the history of Scotland’s South Asians and Muslims
Audrey Wilson and Taylor Webb (Scottish Council on Archives)
Voices - Our Stories Matter: bridging the gap between archives and community heritage
Victoria Peters (University of Strathclyde)
The Scottish Oral History Centre Archive at the University of Strathclyde
Louise Scollay (University of Edinburgh)
The School of Scottish Studies Archives: access and re-use
Caroline Milligan and Lesley Bryson (European Ethnological Research Centre)
An Exploration of the Methodology and Practice of the Regional Ethnology of Scotland Project (RESP)
Versions of some of the presentations will appear in the SRA Journal, Scottish Archives,
but abstracts can be read here.