As 2017 draws to a close its time to review our user statistics recording visits to our archives reading room and enquiries received about our collections. In the year that the University of Stirling celebrated its 50th anniversary its fitting that our own institutional records were our most popular, well-used collection. The University Archives was delighted to be able to support the fantastic range of events and exhibitions which took place during the institution’s golden anniversary (including our Timeline exhibition and the Art Collection’s 1967 show). Throughout the year we celebrated the contribution our heritage collections have made to the academic and cultural life of the campus in our Realising the Vision blog. We also contributed to Fifty, a beautiful new publication produced by the university which tells the story of the university through 50 objects selected by staff, writers, poets, alumni and students.
The NHS Forth Valley Archive continued to be a popular resource for family historians, academics and students, coming second in this year’s list. During the year the University Archives was designated the permanent place of deposit for the records of NHS Forth Valley selected for permanent preservation under the Public Records (Scotland) Act. We look forward to further expanding and developing our holdings relating to the medical history of the Forth Valley area under this new arrangement.
In January 2017 we completed a successful crowdfunding campaign to support the cataloguing and digitisation of the Peter Mackay Archive, a new collection relating to modern Southern African history. The interest generated in this collection kick-started by our fundraising campaign resulted in it taking third place in our annual list. In July we were delighted to receive recognition for this innovative project at the Herald Higher Education Awards where we were awarded a special commendation in the Campaign of the Year category.
A fruitful year for the Peter Mackay Archive ended with a group of our History & Politics students creating a beautiful exhibition featuring material from the collection which is on display in the university library until April 2018.
Reflecting on another busy year for Archives & Special Collections we recorded a continued year-on-year increase in the interest in, and use of, our collections. These statistics highlight the value of our collections for research, teaching and public engagement and we look forward to further developing our resources in 2018.
Those results in full:
2017:
- University of Stirling
- NHS Forth Valley
- Peter Mackay
Previous years:
- NHS Forth Valley
- University of Stirling
- Lindsay Anderson
- NHS Forth Valley
- Musicians’ Union
- University of Stirling
- Norman McLaren
- NHS Forth Valley
- Commonwealth Games Scotland
Find our more at: http://libguides.stir.ac.uk/archives
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