Visionary Position Jennie Renton

WHAT IS A NATIONAL LIBRARY? There is no Byron collection in the world – most of his simple answer to that question. The National original manuscripts and annotated proofs, his Library of Scotland, which has been a Legal surviving journals and around 1200 letters. (It Deposit library since 1710, houses 8 million has been widely rumoured that it also contained printed items and each week collects about 4500 the laddish Lord’s “trophy pubic hairs”, but not more. As well as holding core national collections so.) it is rich in material expressing Scotland’s The “first John Murray” was an Edinburgh influence on the world, its engagement with man who worked on an estate near Elgin before “otherness”. The inward focus adopted by some heading south to London, where he established national libraries would misrepresent Scotland’s his publishing house in 1768. The firm’s premises politically gregarious history. at 50 Albemarle Street became a magnet for When Martyn Wade came into post as generations of thinkers and dreamers brought National Librarian nearly two years ago, he into print by enterprising Murrays – David inaugurated a review intended to transform the Livingstone, Charles Darwin, Jane Austen, institution and its image. Wade’s patina may be David Ricardo, Thomas Carlyle, Sir Arthur subdued, but his energy is high-octane. A biker Conan Doyle, Sir Walter Scott, John Galt, (his is a Honda), he tops up his own tank with Thomas Malthus, Benjamin Disraeli, William adrenalin. He talks targets. For starters, £33 Ewart Gladstone, Samuel Smiles, Herman million for the John Murray archive. Fear of Melville, Washington Irving and the artist David change is on his hit-list and staff empowerment Roberts, to name but a few. workshops on the agenda. A new contingent of Researchers already enjoy some access to the high-energy, hot-desking marketing experts are papers at Albemarle Street, causing academic pitching for media attention. An education John Sutherland to surmise that the archive outreach programme is being fine-tuned to “key” might be “a plumless pudding”. Others contend Scottish Executive priorities of lifelong learning, that powerful research energies will be released enterprise and social justice. The walls of the if the archive is placed in the crucible of the NLS, George IV Bridge building – popularly dubbed where potential for cross-interpretion and “the coffin” – have been studded with eye- elucidation of collections will be unleashed. catching display cases announcing what’s on. The Murray campaign coincides with a major Catching the biggest headlines is the strategy revision drafted in Breaking Through the campaign to raise £33 million to bring the John Walls. The stated aim is to take the Library to the Murray archive to Scotland. Announcing the country and bring people into the Library who Scottish Executive’s decision to donate £6.5 may not even have registered its existence until million to the cause, Culture Minister Frank now. Events, talks, publications, exhibitions, street McAveety described it as “a link to the critical theatre, education and electronic communications role that Scots have paid in the development of are being imaginatively deployed to make ideas and imagination through the centuries”. accessibility a reality. Wade has added more than The Heritage Lottery Fund has been approached a spiky dynamism to the process of outreach which for £22 million and the Library itself must raise was already under way when he took charge. A £6.5 million to match the Scottish Executive step change in Library culture is taking place. contribution. This assault on corporate The burning question is, will the Library’s role philanthropy will be spearheaded by a professional as a centre of research be diminished or enhanced fund-raiser. If fortune favours the brave, a John in this thrust towards “accessibility”? Murray archive development fund of £3 million Founded “for the encouragement of learning”, will come to the Library from the purchase price. the NLS is essentially a thinking tool. Like a The archive is a vast collection of papers and wondrous ark, it carries into the future selected correspondence, 150,000 items documenting manuscripts and the cumulative printed over 200 years of the great publishing house. It expression of Scotland’s national identity. encompasses the “most extensive and important” Curatorial expertise and understanding of the

12 SCOTTISH BOOK COLLECTOR Martyn Wade

collections is pivotal to this ongoing transmission materials on offer, and sometimes the mediation of knowledge. There are concerns that this of curators, that really make them user-friendly; behind-the-scenes work may be pruned. The the dramas taking place are (largely) internalised. British Library obliquely touches on the issue in Intellectual research is not a spectator sport, its response to Breaking Through the Walls: nor are its tools necessarily visually arresting, but it does bear fruit that can transform the lives of The NLS’s draft plan sets out a challeng- all. Martyn Wade’s vision of making the ing range of new activities in support of collections known as widely as possible via the new vision. We wonder, does the digitisation is an inspiring, democratic aspiration Library plan to reduce or curtail activity – and one that is only possible because certain in other areas to accommodate the new people spent a lot of time quietly, and initiatives or will there be an internal innovatively, thinking. From small groups of prioritisation process to help manage specialists, knowledge spread. Theories spawned potential pressure on resources? We technologies, triggering the electronic revolution. recognise the challenge of managing com- Martyn Wade is a public servant shouldering peting demands on resources, and see a complex set of responsibilities. If he brings the prioritisation as a key element of a John Murray archive to Scotland he will have robust strategy; we would be very interested done the country proud. And if he doesn’t it to learn more about your own approach won’t be for lack of determined effort. His to prioritisation of activities. commitment to responsive, pragmatic management has been clearly articulated. Professor David C. Simpson, a former Dean of Obviously priorities and policy will be the Faculty of Medicine at the University of determined according to a set of values. But what Edinburgh, voices concern that “fundamental values, and whose? long-term core roles of collecting, conservation Responsibility for crystallising and asserting and … continuity of expertise” have not been these values should not be ceded to the staff and given “quite the importance one might have trustees of the Library. They would be the first expected”. These and other responses to the draft to acknowledge that they are merely the strategy are posted on the Library’s website. custodians, not the owners, of Scotland’s national To say that the primary task must be to collections. Public discourse must be carried nurture the Library as as a centre of research is beyond the artificial confines of a “consultation not to be élitist. That is its essential role. Reading period”. From once sleepy corridors, Martyn rooms are quiet for a good reason – it is the Wade has sounded a wake-up call.

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