Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

October 2004 Volume 2 (5)

Endpiece

Spreading the verse

Colin Will looks back at his 10 years on the Board of the Scottish Poetry Library.

I joined the Board (then the Committee) of the Scottish Poetry Library (SPL) in 1994, and I step down from it in November this year, so I'm going to be very self-indulgent this time and write about some personal highlights from these ten years. Not an official history then – I don't have the requisite skills or the objective viewpoint – but my relationship with the institution has given me some insights into the position of poetry within our national culture, and the contributions the SPL has made, is making, and will continue to make in the years to come.

The Library is physically in Edinburgh, close to the Scottish Parliament, but it has a nation-wide outreach, through its branches, collections, educational visits, events and its increasingly important web presence. The establishment of branches within host libraries started in 1988, within four years of its foundation. This aspect of its work was widely supported by local authorities and by SLIC, and has contributed significantly to the good relations it has with the Scottish library world. We feel strongly that every community in Scotland has a right of access to poetry of all kinds and from all nations, and we are committed to meeting the needs of these communities. Financial contributions from local authorities were a major source of income in those early days, although then as now the major funding sources were the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) and the support of our own Members (now Friends). It's sad to report that this form of direct support dwindled over the years, and almost totally dried up with the last reorganisation of local government in Scotland. This, mind you, at a time when we're doing more and more in all airts and pairts. Shame on some of you.

A major review of our operations by the SAC in 1994 suggested that we should look to expand and move into a new building. We commissioned the brilliant architect Malcolm Fraser to carry out an initial design study, put our names down for a plot within the old Younger's Brewery site at Holyrood, submitted an application for Lottery funding, and began fund-raising on our own account. The application was successful, and the foundation stone was laid in 1997, at a ceremony involving George Bruce, Iain Crichton Smith, and Edwin Morgan. We moved into the new building in 1999, on schedule, and within a gnat's crochet of budget, helped by the great generosity of members and benefactors. It's a success as a building, and a place of great strength and beauty, enhanced as it is with some wonderfully integrated works of art in stone, engraved glass, tapestry and woven rugs.

The Courtyard Readings were a memorable Festival feature of the old place in Tweeddale Court. I recall fetching the least pigeon-spotted chairs from the old shed in the corner, and setting them out for audiences who dropped in to read or listen. Noise from building work has affected readings in Crichton's Close, but hopefully that will soon be a thing of the past.

One wonderfully original programme which sprang from the Library's proximity to the new Parliament was to connect poets to MSPs in the Holyrood Link Project. Twenty-nine guinea-pig pairings were established in the first instance, with the MSPs commissioning poets to write on subjects of their choice. All the Link poems were published by SPL as Variations on a New Song in 2000.

SPL's publishing programme is not aimed at competing with commercial publishers, but is mostly carried out in collaboration with others, utilising the Library's resources and the considerable expertise of its staff to put together collections which a commercial publisher on its own would find difficult. Recent examples include:
Scotlands: poets and the nation, edited by Douglas Gifford and Alan Riach, published with Carcanet; Edwin Morgan's translation of Robert Baston's Bannockburn, published with Akros and the Mariscat Press, and Handfast: Scottish poems for weddings and affirmations, edited by Lizzie MacGregor, with an introduction by Liz Lochhead, published with Polygon.

I mentioned SLIC earlier, and I now return to the assistance it has given to the Scottish Poetry Index, and to the INSPIRE catalogue in their various incarnations. Together they now constitute an in-depth online resource for poetry not found, as far as I am aware, in any other country.

Over the years we've benefited hugely through the relationship we've built with the SAC. On a personal level, I've greatly enjoyed the ideas, company, advice and inspiration of Walter Cairns, Jenny Brown and Gavin Wallace, successive Heads of Literature within that organisation.

Finally, it's the job of Board members, particularly chairpersons, to work closely with an organisation's Director. It's been my great privilege and pleasure to work with two outstanding Directors. Tessa Ransford, OBE, the Library's founder and first Director, laid down strong foundations and developed the collections and services of the Library from the its establishment in 1984 until she retired in 1999, and was the driving force behind the design and implementation of the new building. Her successor, Dr Robyn Marsack, has built on these strong foundations with great skill, continuing to develop services while introducing new programmes of education, outreach, events and publication. Past and present Directors share a passion for poetry, an ability to articulate aspirations, and the drive and determination to give poetry its proper place within the life of Scotland and beyond.

Colin Will

Information Scotland Vol. 2 (5) October 2004

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Last updated: 9 November 2004