Aberdeen City Archives - Collaborative Projects
Aberdeen City Archives is committed to opening up its collections to new audiences, both at home and abroad, through the use of new technologies. It has been, and is currently involved in a number of collaborative projects which will provide on-line access to the Archives' catalogues and provide remote users with digitised images of many of our records.
THE SCOTTISH ARCHIVE NETWORK
The Scottish Archive Network (SCAN) was established in August 1999 to create an electronic network linking the catalogues of nearly 50 Scottish archives. It is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Genealogical Society of Utah and the National Archives of Scotland. Its key aim is to open up Scotland's rich archival heritage to everyone. Aberdeen City Archives is one of the participating archives and its top-level catalogues are available in electronic format via the Internet. SCAN also provides useful information about Scottish and family history.
THE LOCAL WORD AND IMAGE
Scottish printing celebrates its 500th anniversary in 2008. Aberdeen City Archives, alongside the Local Studies Library and Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum have an exhibition on display at Provost Skene's House. The exhibition traces the history of printing in Aberdeen following the appointment in 1622 of Edward Raban as Aberdeen's first printer through to the present day.
The exhibition runs until 25 October 2008 and the displays will be changed from time to time to reflect the wealth of material available in the collections held by the contributors so there is always a good excuse to go back!
HOMECOMING 2009
Homecoming Scotland 2009 will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scotland's best known poet, Robert Burns. A series of events and programmes are planned and Aberdeen City Archives will be joining in. Part of our contribution will be the launch of our online catalogue and we will also be having open tours of our premises. More details will be announced later in the year.
Homecoming Scotland is a Scottish Government initiative managed by EventScotland in partnership with Visit Scotland.
Other projects Aberdeen City Archives have been involved in include:
A UNION FOR A' THAT
'A Union for a’ that’ is a collaborative education project for Scottish schools marking the 300th anniversary of the Union of the Parliaments in 1707. Aberdeen City Archives were involved in providing source material and information, as well as helping with workshops.
SCOTLAND'S EAST COAST FISHERIES (SECF) PROJECT
Many of the libraries, archives and museums on the east coast of Scotland have joined forces to source over 6,000 digital records relating to Scotland's east coast fisheries. The City Archives was committed to this project from the early planning stages and was a key contributor.
DRAWN EVIDENCE
The Drawn Evidence project is a virtual archive of Scottish architectural plans, drawings and related material, and has been created from collections of architectural material held by repositories throughout the country. Hosted by Dundee University and funded by the Research Support Libraries Programme, it is the culmination of a digitisation project dedicated to addressing the access and preservation issues of architectural archives. Aberdeen City Archives has contributed over 100 images of architectural drawings from its building warrant collections for Aberdeen City, Inverurie and Peterhead.
CHARTING THE NATION
Charting the Nation is a collaborative digital imaging and cataloguing project which explores the early maps of Scotland. Thousands of high-quality images, together with important textual sources, are available at their website. It is based at the Department of Geography of the University of Edinburgh and involves Edinburgh University Library and a core consortium of 9 other higher education and national institutions within the UK. Aberdeen City Archives contributed a number of images relating to the north-east cartographer, James Gordon of Rothiemay.
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