For those who may not have already heard about it, the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh has begun a campaign to preserve its collections from prospective dissemination and relocation in coming years. As a former researcher at the school’s archive while at IASH, I cannot overstate how important it is to keep these collections together. From the campaign’s website:
Students and Academics at Edinburgh University are greatly concerned by proposals to carve up the School of Scottish Studies, an internationally respected beacon for Scotland’s culture, by separating the world famous archive collection from its associated libraries and from ongoing teaching and research. A student campaign is under way to convince the University and the public that the School of Scottish Studies resources must remain intact and accessible to researchers, ethnologists and to the wider public.
If you work in libraries, folklore, ethnography or ethnology, history, literature, or anything within a caber’s toss of those fields, please do consider reading and supporting the petition. Even if you’re not based in Scotland, every signature matters.
benjamin morris 