Our Images for All Project goes public

Recent months have not seen any slowing down of activity. Rather, we have been busier than ever completing our various tasks, and most recently preparing for the public Launch of this 2-year Project. Time flies when you are enjoying yourself; it also flies when you are working on a Project to list, conserve and promote many thousands of maps, atlases, photographs and slides. We can hardly believe this Heritage Lottery Fund supported initiative comes to an end very shortly.

The Launch took place in the Institute of Geography, The University of Edinburgh on Tuesday 14 August. It was described as more "Revelation" than "Launch" by our Host and Principal Guest, Professor Charles Withers, Head of the Institute of Geography, and provided an opportunity for the IFA Team to celebrate the drawing to a close of this very successful Project. In so doing, it also allowed us to share our achievements with a wide range of invited guests including Provost Hulbert of Perth and Mrs Hulbert, Miss Fiona Cuthbert, daughter of the donor of the Society's Cuthbert Collection, members of Heritage Lottery Fund (Scotland) and representatives from a number of Scottish institutions including the library and archive worlds, as well as many of those who helped and supported us during the Project.

The event took the form of a series of Presentations from members of the IFA team, beginning with Professor Bruce Proudfoot, Chairman of the Project Management Group; an informal session where guests had the opportunity to examine some very unusual items from the collections which had undergone conservation as part of the project, and a demonstration of the IFA Maps & Images Database and website by Dr Anthony Newton of the Institute of Geography.

Bruce Gittings, also of the Institute of Geography, and a member of the IFA Project Management Group very slickly performed the duties of Master of Ceremonies for the occasion and Geoff Swinney of the National Museums of Scotland, presented a wonderful case study on W G Burn Murdoch, delighting the audience with images of polar bears and bagpipers in their respective polar settings.

The Launching Ceremony was marked by the joint cutting of a rather special cake by Professor Withers and Meg Hunter, our Project Manager. This cake had been superbly decorated with the Project and Heritage Lottery Fund logos, a map of Scotland - of course, and other images from the collections.

The Launch was a great success, enjoying a good turn out and including BBC Scotland, which featured the IFA Launch on its Reporting Scotland programme and on BBC Radio Scotland that evening, with particular reference to the title page of an early world atlas from The Cuthbert Collection which may have belonged to Sir Walter Scott.

The Society is indebted to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the necessary funding to carry out this Project - in the words of our Vice Chairman, Barrie Brown, "as specified, on time and under budget". Barrie Brown finished his Presentation by saying, "In this way, the Society's Collections will take their rightful place as an important - and accessible - educational resource for Scotland".

The end of August, however, will not mean the death of Images for All; the terms of the HLF funding allow for a winding down period, so it is anticipated that all outcomes of the Project will be successfully completed by the end of the year and plans have been put in to place to ensure that the good work of Images for All is preserved and carried forward as the Society moves to Perth.