If I may 'breenge in' on this...

I've been sitting on the sidelines somewhat waiting to see how this would pan out.

I'm a former student at SoSS, currently a visiting staff member on a related project and a former member of the Tobar an Dualchais / Kist o Riches digitisation project team.

I'm also currently the Chair of the Traditional Music Forum, a network of over 70 organisations working across Scotland, from academia to local community workshops and folk clubs, many of whom have been expressing their concerns. In that role, I have requested an official statement from the University press office, which I am expecting soon.

All that said, I am commenting in a personal capacity here, without direct knowledge of all the issues at hand. I am very happy to be put right!

I've known informally for over a year that the move of the department was on the cards for 2014.

The students have created a forceful campaign in a short period of time which is to be applauded. However, in doing so, I fear they have created quite a muddled message, which may end up causing more confusion in the long run. (Indeed, there already seems to be considerable confusion over the latest announcement).

It has reached the height of hysteria in some quarters, resulting in a message of "those University of Edinburgh so-and-sos are closing the School!", which has reached concerned fellow folklorists across the Irish Sea and the Atlantic. Many of us will have received the round robin emails, and some colleagues and I have received direct enquiries from concerned academics and archive staff elsewhere.

Several of the posts on the petition reflect this "closing the school" notion:

* "A department of world renown. Why close it?"

* "Its closure is not simply an issue for academia, but would have implications for Scottish culture in the wider cultural world. Don't do it!"

Closure has never been on the table, as far as I am aware. However, it seems clear that in planning the move of the department, the location of the archive and library resources was inexplicably overlooked by the University powers-that-be.

Perhaps part of this was due to an expectation that, when planning the move a year or two ago, the completion of the Tobar / Kist digitisation project would mean that the original tapes would no longer need to be on site. While Tobar / Kist has not managed to do everything it set out to do, this would nonetheless be a reasonable assumption, in my view; not least since, as many of us know, reel-to-reel tapes suffer considerably from repeated access and use. I'll come to more of the digitisation aspect shortly.

As far as I understand, the overlooking of the archive housing prompted a major review of the archive which took place in 2012 and was published last October. It is freely available online:

http://www.ed.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.104300!/fileManager/Review-of-The-School-of-Scottish-Studies-Archive-FINAL.pdf

The archive review was conducted by Richard Ranft (Head of Sound and Vision, The British Library) and Lesley Richmond (Director, Glasgow University Archive Services). It contained reports from the three specialist reviewers - Ríonach uí Ógáin (Director, National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin), Catriona MacDonald (Reader in Late Modern Scottish History, University of Glasgow) and Gary West (Senior Lecturer in Celtic and Scottish Studies, Edinburgh University).

It is perhaps with the relatively recent arrival of this publication that news of the move became more widely known amongst the students and we find ourselves in the current situation.

I don't doubt for a moment the value in having all the resources, staff and students together on one site. However, the review document states:

"The imminent moves of the Celtic and Scottish Studies academic staff to new premises and the lack of designated accommodation for the Archives is a critical moment in the history of the SSSA. A high level options appraisal is urgently needed to determine its future. While it is not the purpose of the report to find solutions, we hope the following will help inform decisions that need to be taken."

My reading of this is that the move of the academic staff to new premises is already agreed - and as such the hope that maintaining the school and resources in one location may not be an option, despite the latest positive noises from the student campaign.


There are several aspects to the proposed move, as far as I can see -

* the archive holdings (sound, photographic, manuscript)
* the library
* the building

Each has its own complexities, but the individual issues with each appear to have been conflated into the "the School is under threat" message. I don't know enough about each to pass comment, but here goes.

Sound Archive
It has been unfortunate that in the mass wave of concern, the excellent work of Tobar an Dualchais / Kist o Riches has not necessarily been brought to the fore. Through this, as the review states, "about 80% of the primary research field tapes collection has been digitised". The notion that the sound archive would somehow be made "inaccessible" and "dispersed" after a multi-million pound project to digitise and make more widely available said archive, does not make sense. While there are debates to be had (cf. the review doc) as to how best to provide access to these digitised recordings, the fact that the majority of the tapes are now digitised, through a visionary project (albeit with its own flaws), means the sound archive holdings are not under substantial threat. Ironically, they are actually more accessible than ever!

Looking through the comments on the petition, it is clear that many of the signatories are totally unaware of this fact.

In real terms, then, the majority of the original physical tapes which have been digitised are no longer required on-site for regular access, as had been the case in the past. In fact, as the review states, already "The older SSSA master tapes made before 1958 are stored in the [University's] main library along with wax cylinders." This time period includes the halcyon days of Hamish Henderson first meeting Jeannie Robertson and recording in the berryfields.

This is not to undermine the value and importance of the original tapes; of course they should be preserved and maintained appropriately. But as the decades roll on, sustained use of them was never going to be an option; hence the relative urgency of the digitisation work.

One of the major issues I can see - which is referred to in the review - is the serious understaffing of the Archive to enable greater resourcing of requests for access, cataloguing and more outreach and impact work, although what the Archive has been doing in that regard in recent years has been splendid.

[One thing of note as a slight aside is a proposal being taken forward by the National Library of Scotland, in partnership with Tobar an Dualchais / Kist o Riches, initially funded by the Scottish Government, to develop a new Scottish 'national sound archive'. The work on this has just begun in recent months. The review notes that this "could give an opportunity for the SSSA to clarify its work in relation to other archival institutions in Scotland"].

The library
I don't feel suitably informed to comment on this other than to say I would suspect that the Celtic & Scottish Studies library is not alone amongst class libraries across the university in being under pressure to rationalise its collection.

The building
As fantastic as it would be to continue to walk the same corridors as Hamish Henderson & co, the building is far from accessible, and does not meet the needs of the Disability Discrimination Act / Equality Act 2010. The University is under legal obligation to ensure its accommodation complies with this legislation, and I think we'd all agree that this is only right and proper. I would presume that a large portion of the funds seemingly announced is for this purpose, (which may tally with the email Jim McLean has received).

Well, I've gone on long enough - but suffice to say, I wish the students well, but I would urge caution - perhaps "more haste, less speed" - until official pronouncements are made by the university. While I'm not an authority on matters, I would hope that some of what I've outlined above will help put folks minds at rest that the Archive at least seems to be being considered with the respect and seriousness it deserves:

"A widely held view from those that we interviewed, including Archive staff, its users, the Head of the School and the Vice Principal, is that there is great potential for the SSSA. It would be politically unacceptable to close or to relocate it outside of the city. Integrating the Archives into Information Services risks breaking important academic input that has been at the foundation of the Archives from its inception. On the other hand the SSSA clearly needs to work more closely with central departments and share resources if it is to fulfil its potential."

It may well be of course, amongst all this, that the staff are not in a position to comment publicly, and are therefore content to let the student campaign run even if the message is rather mixed, as the outcry it has generated may produce the desired effect. Hopefully clarity will reign in the coming hours / days.