Your Scottish Archives
Your Scottish Archives is all about opening Scotland’s wonderful archival collections to as many people as possible. We will create a dynamic, exciting, new and unique online portal which will allow you to search across the archives and records of local authorities, universities, businesses, as well as heritage and community groups. Your Scottish Archives will be easy to use with basic and advanced search options and lots of fascinating and helpful information and resources to help you on your archival journey. The Your Scottish Archives team will work with official repositories as well as volunteers from heritage and community groups to make sure that the stories of as many people as possible are included in the portal. We will build on our ongoing work to support voluntary groups in collecting and cataloguing their own archives, including documents, photographs and oral histories, and help them promote and preserve the collections for others to access. Archives come in many forms—written, photographic, audio, visual, film and digital—influencing and improving almost every aspect of life. Their impact, economic, social and cultural, is wide reaching.
Your Scottish Archives is a new online portal, developed by SCA, where any archive in Scotland can add information about their collections and upload catalogues.
The portal is free to use for both archive holders and researchers, allowing all kinds of archival repositories to include their collections in a Scotland-wide, cross-searchable online resource.
Offering a central point for information on Scotland’s rich archival materials, Your Scottish Archives makes it easier for anyone interested in using archival materials to find out where they are and how to use them, as well as helping archive holders to share their fascinating materials.
Since May 2022, work has been underway to start filling Your Scottish Archives with archival collections from right across Scotland. Over 100 archives, from Aberdeen to Bernera, Carsphairn to Shetland, are starting to add information on their archival holdings. With materials ranging from Glasgow theatres to amateur dramatics in Biggar, from the Kincardineshire farmer’s club to hone stones in Dunkeld, our first new additions give a glimpse into the varied treasures in store with the Your Scottish Archives portal.
Your Scottish Archives also offers a wealth of information for archival researchers, including a glossary of tricky terms, knowledge base of archival articles and family history guide.
All archives, whether held by a local authority, community group, museum, business or university, are welcome to share their collections, if:
- Your collection includes original archival material
- You provide public access to your archive
- You have or are happy to apply for a (free) archon (archive identity) number
- You have or are able to create catalogues or descriptions of your collections
- You are based in Scotland