Project News February 2007
As the second year of the project begins, we are pleased to announce the launch of the long awaited Image Gallery on the project website. A major step forward in the project, the Image Gallery helps to fulfil one of the key goals of ‘Images for All’, which is to facilitate greater access for the public to the Society’s geographical collections. For this element of the project, the cream of the Society’s photographical collections has been selected for digitisation to an archival standard, enabling widespread access to the surrogate image and allowing the original to be placed in secure storage out of harm’s way.
Visitors to the online Image Gallery can browse the collections which include: Scottish Landforms; St Kilda; Barra; Polar Images; H.M. Stanley Events 1890; Fridjof Nansen Events 1897; Maps of Scotland; Early Mediterranean Port Charts; Views of Scotland and images of the construction of the Forth Rail Bridge. Images are accompanied by explanatory texts giving more detail on the background of the image itself.
Meg gets on with some slide cleaning
The Society is particularly proud of its St Kilda collection which captures images of early twentieth century pre-evacuation life on the remote island and you can read all about the St Kilda slides in the article by Dr Jeffrey Stone, Council Member of the National Trust for Scotland and Chairman of its St Kilda Club, who has had the opportunity to examine the collection.
In other areas, the activities of the ‘Images for All’ team continue to escalate, and a list of the society’s Early Map collection, arranged by place and date, may now be accessed. With the listing of the Society’s UK modern maps complete, work has now started on the rest of the world. The maps are being catalogued into the custom designed database system which will allow the public to search our map collections.
Autumn 2006 witnessed an intense period of lantern slide cleaning, with Secretary of the Project Management Group, Margaret Wilkes, being drafted in to help. Two complete collections comprising over a thousand slides, including the slides of Isobel Wylie Hutchison, were brushed, cleaned and polished then individually wrapped in specially designed paper pockets and stored in a custom built slide cabinet. This will ensure the slides are preserved for the future in a stable secure environment, protected from breakages and dust.
The RSGS collections are being brought to the public through ‘Images for All’ with our newly designed mini-exhibition. The exhibition consists of three banners displaying information on the work of the project and images from the RSGS collections. The banners premiered at the Society’s annual dinner and awards ceremony in October, where guests had the opportunity to view the exhibition during the wine reception.
A plan has been drawn up to tour the banners round some of the RSGS centres, and before Christmas, the banners travelled to Kirkcaldy, Glasgow, Inverness and Galashiels as well as to the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers conference and the Dundee Mountain Film Festival. Further dates for the banner tour are planned for the New Year so look out for them at forthcoming RSGS talks.
Autumn 2006 also saw the release of our most successful press release to date, on the Cuthbert Collection, which featured in the last issue of Geogscot. The story was picked up by several local newspapers, including the Perthshire Advertiser which featured a full page colour spread showing two items from the Early Maps collection.
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