A

University Collections Advisory Committee Centre for Research Collections, Digital Scholarship Centre Wednesday 23rd October 14:00 – 15:30

MINUTES

Present: Prof. Neil Cox (Convenor, Chair in History of Art) Prof. David Fergusson (Professor of Divinity, Principal of New College) Tessa Giblin (Director of Talbot Rice Gallery) Jacky MacBeath (Head of Museums, Head of Centre for Research Collections) Jeremy Upton (Director of Library and University Collections) Dr. Alan Brown (University Court Representative) Roy Biddle (Head of Philanthropy, Trusts and Foundations) Andrew Wilson (Student Representative, EUSA President)

Apologies: Gavin McLachlan (Chief Information Officer and Librarian to the University) Steven Poliri (Estate Development Manager, Estates Development) Professor Lesley McAra (Chair of Penology, Assistant Principal Community Relations) James Robinson (External Representative) Rob Tomlinson (Deputy Director, Communications & External Affairs) Professor Tom Gillingwater (Professor of Anatomy) Professor Siân Bayne (Personal Chair of Digital Education) Amanda Hogg (Committee Clerk)

Minutes: Carla Zaccardelli/Sandy Lin, (Cover for Amanda Hogg, Committee Clerk)

1. Welcome and Apologies

i. The Convenor noted apologies and welcomed Andrew Wilson, the new President of the Student Association who started in the position in June 2019.

ii. NC proposed contacting UCAC members for their views on Committee membership as part of a review of attendance and representation.

iii. Roy Biddle is representing Chris Cox on an ongoing basis therefore Chris Cox is to be removed from the membership list on papers and on UCAC website.

2. Minute from the Previous Meeting (Paper A)

1 A

i. Two spelling errors in the minutes were noted – now corrected.

ii. Exhibition comments regarding how more can be made of them to bring to the public is an ongoing action - JU & NC.

vi. Regarding Sub Group for University Collections Exhibitions - JU was in contact with SP and he was positive regarding this suggestion.

vii. Collections Management Policy 2020-2030: JMACB reported the CMP was approved at KSC and will go to Court. KSC requested a version which will show retrospective tracked changes. JMACB to provide to Committee.

viii. Charles Lyell Papers & Business Schedule 2019-2020 – on agenda.

The Committee approved the minutes from the previous meeting.

3. Matters Arising

L&UC New Strategy Update by Director of Library and University Collections

i. JU provided an update surrounding the ongoing work on a new Library & University Collections strategy being developed in response to the University 2030 Strategy. Sessions have been held with L&UC Senior Management Team and managers in order to shape a document which would serve L&UC for the next 5 years.

ii. L&UC Strategy to be emailed to UCAC at end of November for JU to circulate comments. draft copy of strategy

4. Convenor’s business

i. The Convenor expressed his thanks and good wishes to Joe Marshall who has now left the University of Edinburgh to join the National Library of Scotland as Associate Director of Collections.

ii. JMACB has taken over as Head of the Centre for Research Collections, retaining her position of Head of Museums. She is Acting Head of Special Collections while recruitment for this position is ongoing. iii. Old College Project – Under the Stairs project update. A student project to look at representation of diversity through our art collections is ongoing. L&UC will continue to work with

2 A

major stakeholders in Old College to review the presentation of the Art Collection in this space. The lighting in iv. A separate project has been set up to consider how the Old the Raeburn College Reception area should be refreshed including requires proposals for a repaint and new images showing the adjusting: Action University’s place in the community. TG reported that the Estates lighting in the Raeburn requires adjusting.

5. General Update

JMACB provided the Committee with an extensive verbal update covering the following topics: i. Human Remains repatriation update – On 22 November 2019. The University will repatriate 12 skulls from the Vedda community, Sri Lanka at an event hosted by the Principal. ii. An ongoing collaboration with National Museums Scotland will come to fruition with a public exhibition on the History of Medicine in 2021, which will include loans from the Anatomical Collection and Special Collections. iii. University Collections received a bequest of £380k from Mr. Harry Nagler for the sole purpose of conservation of heritage items. iv. A major water ingress incident at the University Collections Facility resulted in damage to over 4,000 volumes from the Playfair Library Collection. 25,000 staff hours have been spent on the project to date in moving, conserving, cleaning and documenting affected collections. Response from staff in the Centre for Research Collections, Estates, Health & Safety, ISG Admin and Insurance Office has been exceptional. An insurance claim is in process. . JU enquired regarding tours of the Collection Facility and if dates have been fixed – JMACB confirmed University dates had been circulated but said UCAC can have their own group/tour. However, this would only be considered worthwhile if we could guarantee a good turn out of Committee members. v. Prescribe Culture pilot project – The Museums Service is leading on a social prescribing pilot project. The pilot phase is now live, supported by a small grant from Museums Galleries Scotland. The pilot project has been developed to support student health and wellbeing through a series of signposted events in the University and across the city with external cultural partners. The pilot evaluation will be presented to UCAC in due course.

3 A

vi. China 2020 Update - work continues on the programme. Since the start of term Chinese focused events have taken place at Cecilia’s Hall including the Moon Festival, Family Days etc. Partnerships with Chinese Community School, Swire Chinese Language School and the Burrell Collection in Glasgow are all supporting our China 2020 events. We will be bringing back our bilingual Cèilidh at St Cecilia’s Hall and tours of the Anatomical Museum and St Cecilia’s Hall will be given by the Museum staff in Mandarin and introductions to the Collections in Cantonese. Student volunteers will be helping out. Key feature of China 2020 is the Lu Xun exhibition on 2 April – 26 September 2020.

vii. Commissioning Guidelines - JMACB thanked all for their input from previous UCAC meeting on 23rd October 2019. These comments have been incorporated into the Collections Management Policy 2020-2030 and have been tested against the KB100 commission.

viii. KB100 commission - Katie Paterson has been selected to produce new major artwork for the upcoming King’s Buildings centenary in 2020. The proposal is to create a permanent piece composed of 150 unique artworks installed around KB campus. A small collection will be unveiled in July 2020 as part of the proposed Chancellor’s visit, with completion by May 2021.

ix. Museums Audit – JMACB will bring a paper response to the Museums Internal Audit May 2019 to a future meeting. All ISG museum collections and the Natural History and Geology Collections from the Colleges, were subject to the audit. Seven moderate recommendations were made. The major recommendation is around management of College collections.

x. CSE for Centre for Research Collections –the CRC was awarded a Customer Service Award earlier this year. The Committee asked for a note of thanks to all staff involved with the process to be recorded in the minutes in particular, Fran Baseby, the Service Team leader.

SUBSTANTIVE ITEMS

6 The Charles Lyell Notebooks: Acquisition and Engagement Projects

JMACB reported on the completion of the successful project to acquire the Charles Lyell Notebooks, thanking Development & Alumni colleagues David McClay and Roy Biddle especially. They spearheaded the campaign to raise £966k in a short period of time. A small amount of funding has already been secured to support the next phase of the project which will see the Collection conserved,

4 A

catalogued, digitized and exhibited ahead of innovative research projects. RB reported that a gift of £10k had been received from Heriot Watt University. It is exceptional for a University to support the purchase of material at another institution. He also noted that the project was unusual in securing donations from UoE staff, non-alumni and approx. 24% from overseas. Most donors have a connection to geological related activities.

7 New College Library Project: Update (Paper B)

i. NC referred to paper B which was concerned with the work required to move library and archive material out of New College, and the need to consider carefully the move of the special collections during the project. Committee had queries around access to collections during the project, and risks associated with any late delivery of the Estates work. .

ii. JU provided background information on the two parts of the project, the decanting the general collection to DHT and the Special Collections (location currently being investigated).

iii. DF recognised the project would entail a huge amount of work for the Library staff, it was a very good that it is happening and the need to protect our assets against the risk of fire. There will be a fair amount of disruption for 18 months which will impact negatively on students. NC staff are working with colleagues from L&UC to minimize the inconvenience. The Project will provide improved disabled access to the building as it is currently a major problem. There will be a new lift shaft installed in the Library to improve disabled access. It was again noted that all are very grateful to L&UC staff for managing and undertaking this huge task.

iv. Further information on the project will be presented at the next meeting.

ITEMS FOR NOTING AND FORMAL APPROVAL

8. CRC Exhibitions Programme 19-20 and 20-21

University Collections Exhibitions Programme 2019/2020 to 2021 was tabled. JMACB reported that she had not pursued the question of long term exhibition funding any further internally or externally since JU & NC to the last meeting, and that 80% of the funds needed for this year had discuss. NC to been secured from Scottish Funding Council. The programme is establish currently unfunded for 2022 onwards. working group

5 A

9. University Collections Loans Out (Paper C)

Committee noted the paper and homologated the loans. To be discussed further with SP DF enquired re the costs of external loans – JMACB confirmed that all costs are met by the borrower. Museums cover the costs of re- installing any works on return to the University. DF recommended this could be discussed further with SP.

10. New Art Acquisitions for 18-19 (Paper D)

i. Committee welcomed the paper and noted that £70k was spent in the period 2018-19. For the period 2019-20 there an allocation of £50k from the ISG Capital budget, but is no allocation from the Library materials budget. TG commented that she thought the selections of acquisitions were brilliant and really strong.

ii. DF enquired on the use of the acquisitions. In common with the Talbot Rice Gallery, acquisitions align with research interests, student activity and the digital transformation strategy. JU pointed out how public we are about our collections development policy and how it very transparently describes what we are acquiring.

11. Business Schedule 2019-2020

The L&UC Strategy will be added as a substantive item for the next meeting.

Internal audit report item – move across into the next column (pink) 20 February 20.

RB asked for more detail to be provided in the schedule, possibly on the last column ‘Points for discussion/information’ Currently it was not More detail in always easy to understand fully the nature of the topics being schedule. proposed for discussion.

12. Any other business

No other business was discussed.

Date of Next Meeting: 20th February 2020, 11:00 – 12:30, Reading Room, University Collections Facility

6