Our LondonAway trip was to Edinburgh, Scotland. We stayed in the suburb of Dalkeith and bussed into the city. Our first trip was to the
National Library of Scotland. They are the largest library in Scotland and major research library in Europe with 14 million printed items and 100,000 manuscripts. They house 2 million maps and atlases, 300,000 music scores, 32,000 film and video, and 25,000 of magazines and newspapers. The library has items in 490 different languages and grows with 6000 new items every week. They specialize in Scotland's knowledge, history and culture. They are the legal deposit of Scotland and don't lend out books; reference only. The collection is vast and available to anyone who wishes to consult them. The reader's tickets are for special collections, rare materials and for licensed digital resources. Users don't need a ticket to use the map rooms. Much of their catalog is online and an interesting database that they have is called Scots Abroad. This is further subdivided into Scots in North America, Emigrants guide to North America, Australia and New Zealand and Emigration Correspondence. Their digital archive is in beta form and the Scottish Screen Archive is created with the Heritage Lottery Fund. Users can view 1000 flim clips and moving imagaes online. Not all of that archive is professional works, but amatuer work preserving the life of ordinary citizens and the Gaelic language.
Picture from National Library of Scotland
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