Local Studies agent provocateur

Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of speaking at the LocScot Local History Day School which was held in the A.K. Bell Library in Perth. Many of you know that I have a great interest in all things local studies so this was an event that I was really looking forward to and it didn't disappoint in any way.


The turn-out was very good and there was evident relish and enthusiasm for the role that our local studies collections play both in library terms but also in terms of wider Scottish society. I was thrilled when Eleanor McKay asked to me to speak at this event and also asked me to be thought provoking. I think I may have ended up putting the emphasis on the provoking but, I suppose, one of the roles of an academic is to ask the difficult questions and, whenever possible, to suggest possible solutions.

I adopted a quite self-critical approach, looking at our local studies collections individually and the sector as a whole and focussed in on some of the key areas that I think we need to address. These included issues such as losing users to the online providers, online presence and visibility, digital content and also the preoccupation with physical access to physical collections.

Local studies have a long and illustrious history going right back to the Public Library Acts in the 1850s and specific mention of them being made by WHK Wright at the inaugural meeting of the Library Association. Local studies users are the original lifelong learners, self-improvers who undertake intricate and complex, often multi-disciplinary, investigations and demonstrate real enthusiasm for their work.

However, our online presence in the local studies field could be better I'm afraid to say and I was pointing out some key examples such as the number of clicks it takes to get from Scotland's People to a local studies site. I also touched on the fact that lots of our websites speak about the "wealth of information" that our collections have but don't really give a good flavour of that wealth in an online environment. Brand local studies or, as I think, brand local history is also very important and I gave some suggestions on how this might be tackled. I quoted a piece of research done here at RGU, in which one family historian said "I wouldn't have thought of using the public library" and highlighted that we can't expect users to come to us and that we underestimate our users at our peril.

I did enjoy provoking discussion and debate and there was certainly a great buzz during the brainstorming sessions. I was also keen to get the group to think about the alliances and partnerships that could be created and mused about getting displays from events such as Local History Week out into shopping centres and supermarkets and working with companies and organisations through their Corporate Social Responsibility schemes.

So, lots of ideas, lots of debate and lots of discussion about the future of local studies collections which are, in my opinion, our other national library.