Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal August 2008 Volume 6(4)

Aiming Higher 1

Context
One of the SCURL Affiliated Groups, the Scottish Working Group on Official Publications (SWOP), held an event on the topic of ‘From Parliament Square to Holyrood’ on 23 May. The event aimed to examine and demonstrate various online historical official publications to librarians from Scotland, with the welcome addition of two colleagues from York University Library. SWOP traditionally offers a bursary place to a student on a library course and the invitation was offered to both Robert Gordon University and to Strathclyde University. The bursary was awarded to Isabelle Clark who recently completed an MA in Scottish Studies at the Crichton Campus in Dumfries of Glasgow University. Isabelle has submitted her impressions of the training event. As always, readers’ comments are welcome and I wonder in particular if any reader would care to offer their comments on duplication which is referred to in the article? Jill Evans, SCURL.

Have we lost the feeling?

In her review of an event on digitising official publications, Isabelle Clark asks whether something is being lost by no longer handling primary material.

‘From Parliament Square to Holyrood: Historical Official Publications Online’ was an interesting and informative seminar – papers illustrated a deep appreciation of the complexities of providing electronic information. The seminar demonstrated access to key historical texts from personal computers. Whilst the systems demonstrated will undoubtedly assist researchers, I feel that there is a missing link – the feelings and emotions that one has when handling historical data and thus connecting with the past.

Digitisation of records protects and conserves historical data. Researchers of all denominations continually require access to historical data and thus the digitisation of records works on two platforms; firstly, the records are being protected, and secondly, they are more widely accessible. The aim of the seminar was not to discuss the theory behind digitisation of records – rather it was a demonstration of the type of project which can be achieved with a lot of hard work, funding and time. Speakers shared their own areas of expertise with the audience, and some of the difficulties involved in the project’s aims and objectives.

The speakers all alluded to the cost of digitising historical data. What was not clear is whether some of these digitised records are being duplicated on different web portals – a system which should be avoided at all costs. This question was not answered.

Opening the seminar were presentations by Paul Seaward and Gillian MacIntosh who gave illuminating talks on the parliamentary records. As a user, the Records of the Parliament of Scotland were of particular interest. This site is beneficial to students, researchers, the legal profession and historians of Scotland. Paul Seaward’s presentation on the UK Parliament’s records was of prime value, showing the complexity of the legal and political history.

The last presentation of the morning was a little confusing – why is their a need to publish the Hansard reports in a different form? This takes up space on the Internet and is another system requiring scrutiny – there are control issues associated with this work, such as will the user be aware that this may not be the authoritative record?

Matthew Woollard’s informative Historical Population Reports is aimed at providing an authoritative record for academics such as social historians and geographers; but he stressed it is not beneficial to genealogists. It is an ambitious project restricted through copyright issues, but does provide modern historians with access to key social data.

Julian Ball’s BOPCRIS site is a useful vehicle for historians of all denominations but again I question the possible duplication of data. The website is a database informing the user the location of these records and thus a useful aid to the research process. Rob Newman’s presentation on the ProQuest site again suggested to me that there could be duplication of information.

Undoubtedly digitisation of records is beneficial, but it is expensive, time-consuming and a worry for archivists who manage the records. For instance, the primary sources represent inherited values and traditions of the past; do the electronic versions have the same impact? Will the electronic documents be the only legacy we leave to our descendants? Are we, as archivists, denying our descendants the opportunity to handle the documents and get a feeling about emotions, from the handwritten evidence? These questions were not addressed during the seminar, but perhaps could be the subject of a future event.

In conclusion this seminar was definitely beneficial, providing a working knowledge of the projects and historical information electronically available which aims to protect and conserve vital historical data. Undoubtedly archivists from various repositories will have sufficient knowledge to direct enquiries to the web portals instead of retrieving the historical data. Regrettably users will not have assistance with the use of these web portals and will, mostly, have to learn the system by themselves or use the ‘contact’ facility on the websites. The information thus becomes user-friendly but the archivist becomes a machine.

Information Scotland Vol. 6(4) August 2008

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.