Heritage (Digital Technology)
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-01023, in the name of Fiona Hyslop, on the digital future of Scotland’s heritage.
15:25
Scotland’s heritage is one of our greatest assets and it attracts many visitors from overseas. Scotland offers not only tremendous natural beauty but an incredibly rich history that can be observed in its iconic structures, such as Edinburgh castle and Maeshowe in Orkney; in its variety of traditionally constructed buildings, which give the country its character; and in the personal histories of its people over generations—their stories, endeavours and achievements, all of which have contributed to the nation in which we live today.
People across the world want to learn more about Scotland—about its history, places, people and culture and about how all that connects to them personally. Our heritage is vital to cultural tourism. Research shows that the historic environment contributes £2.3 billion to the Scottish economy and supports 60,000 jobs. Using the most modern technologies to enhance its presentation will be crucial to sustaining that contribution.
The relentless development of digital technology is fundamentally changing the world in which we live and such technology is becoming an increasingly common element in daily life. It is critical that Scotland not only keeps up with but pushes ahead of the field in that area. In September, Scotland hosted an international conference on digital documentation and visualisation and brought leading experts from all over the world to speak at that. Our world-leading technical expertise, coupled with the extraordinary wealth of our cultural heritage, places us in a stronger position than ever to lead in the digital documentation of heritage.
Scotland is also a world leader in the digitisation of archival records in relation to our people and family history. Digital technology provides tremendous potential not only for increasing access to sites, archives and information but for capturing the imagination and interest of young and old alike and encouraging more visitors to Scotland.
Information is ever more accessible as data becomes available online. Digitising archive collections has been pioneered by several bodies in Scotland, including the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, through Scran and Canmore. By improving the quality of the information that is accessible online, we can encourage more people to benefit from the considerable resources that are available to them.
Does the cabinet secretary appreciate that, in my region of the Highlands and Islands, a great many people cannot access broadband properly? What can be done about that?
One thing that can be done is to ensure that the United Kingdom Government invests. When I met Jeremy Hunt only a few weeks ago, we discussed the very point of improving broadband access. Scotland has 32 per cent of the UK’s landmass, but that is not reflected in our funding from the reduced licence fee—one consequence of that cut is the job losses that the BBC has announced only today.
On our contribution, as Alex Neil has said, the Scottish Government announced as part of the spending review what I think was about £68 million for broadband development. I share Jamie McGrigor’s concern, which is an agenda item that the Scottish Government will address. However, the UK Government has its responsibilities, too.
It is clear that digital technology can be applied in many ways. It can be applied to entire buildings, with incredible possibilities. Many of our most treasured heritage sites are vulnerable or difficult to access. For example, the internal spaces at neolithic Skara Brae in Orkney are not accessible to visitors but, thanks to recent digital survey work, we will be able to provide virtual access.
Historic Scotland’s ambitious Scottish ten project uses 3D digital scanning. Over five years, it will record Scotland’s five United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization world heritage sites alongside five outstanding international heritage sites for future generations. That project is a unique public sector partnership with Glasgow School of Art and is an example of effective collaboration to deliver something that is truly groundbreaking. I can announce that work on scanning the old and new towns of Edinburgh, which will reveal remarkable architecture in a new way, has started.
Our digital heritage work is helping to build international co-operation. By working closely with international partners, we are forging stronger international links for Scotland. We are working in partnership with the United States National Park Service at Mount Rushmore; with the Indian Government to record the remarkable Rani Ki Vav stepwell; and with the People’s Republic of China on the eastern Qing tombs. Historic Scotland continues to work in partnership with the CyArk foundation, which was founded by the inventor of the terrestrial laser scanner, Ben Kacyra, and discussions are under way to develop the next project.
The detailed spending plans show that the budget for Historic Scotland, which is doing a lot of the digital work to put archives on the internet, is being cut severely, by 24 per cent. Will that impact on Historic Scotland’s work in the area?
No, it will not. The Labour Party’s amendment raises concerns about the spend in the area. I reassure members that Historic Scotland’s front-line services will not be impacted. It is driving through efficiencies in the organisation and, more important, it is growing income from other sources. The spending review does not contain information on how Historic Scotland is helping to support its continuing spend by growing its income from other areas.
We have made a commitment to digitally record not only the five international world heritage sites, but all of the 345 properties that are in the care of the Scottish ministers. That answers Ruth Davidson’s point. The records can be used for conservation, education and interpretation. Scotland will be the first country in the world to digitally document its national collection of monuments in 3D.
The experience that will be delivered by the National Trust for Scotland and Historic Scotland at Bannockburn in time for the 700th anniversary of the battle in 2014 will push the boundaries of the technology. A digital survey of the battlefield will be combined with 3D motion capture and visualisation to bring the battle and participants to life. The team hopes to virtually investigate elements of the battle, such as what exactly happens when a mounted knight in full battle armour meets a tight schiltron formation of Scots spearmen. That will certainly give a new insight and will bring alive something that people might have in their imagination.
In addition to our fabulous historic buildings, Scotland has an immense wealth of historic artefacts and archive materials. Our libraries, archives, museums and galleries are fully embracing the new digital age. The National Library of Scotland has already digitised more than 1 million pages, and has an impressive digital gallery of photographs and maps. The National Galleries of Scotland has a rolling programme of creating digital images of the national collection of fine art and publishing its artworks online; it has also developed mobile phone apps. National Museums Scotland has digitised more than 18,000 objects and images and is now delivering online records via its website. Museums Galleries Scotland has a digital advice service for its members, which offers free best practice advice on all aspects of digital activity.
The Labour Party has singled out three organisations by name in its amendment, but I have been able to protect cultural organisations from the worst excesses of the Westminster cuts, which were originally planned by Labour and which have now been implemented by the Conservatives. As RCAHMS is mentioned in the amendment, I assure members that it has no cash cut. The census activity of the National Records of Scotland is clearly not at previous levels, so it has a significant budget reduction. As I said, Historic Scotland is making substantial efficiencies and is growing its income from other sources and so is less reliant on Government, while commitments to grants for regeneration work will continue.
One of the most important uses of the resources is in support of teachers in their education of our children. In 2009, I launched Scotland’s history, an online resource that is produced by Learning and Teaching Scotland with support from Historic Scotland and our national collections. Scotland’s history, which is now called studying Scotland, charts 5,000 years of life in Scotland, which can be explored through images, text, audio, video, interactive documents and high-quality internet links, bringing history alive in the classroom.
The National Records of Scotland holds historical records that cover 900 years of Scottish history, from the 12th century up to the present. That is a unique resource for the study of family and social history in Scotland. We are exploiting digital technologies to make those records accessible throughout Scotland and the world.
ScotlandsPeople is a world-leading service that is provided by National Records of Scotland and which gives direct, paying access to a wide range of records for more than 80 million Scots. Digital technologies make that information available online at a must-visit centre in Edinburgh and through a growing number of local authorities throughout Scotland. The website currently has almost 1 million subscribers, and it had more than 4 million visits in 2010-11.
National Records of Scotland is working to expand the ScotlandsPeople service through encouraging local authorities to develop more local centres for family history and adding new material to the databases. By combining remote access to national datasets, local archives and the local knowledge of registrars, archivists, librarians and others, those centres can provide a resource to attract our diaspora visitors out of Edinburgh to visit other parts of Scotland.
Does the cabinet secretary recognise the exciting work that the University of Dundee has done on its family history project in its digital archives and the digitisation of the immensely impressive Michael Peto collection, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year?
I am more than happy to recognise the University of Dundee and, indeed, all the partners. Scotland really is world leading. We think nothing of debating the low-carbon economy, our world-leading legislation relating to that and its economic impact, but the digital work that is taking place in Scotland is also truly world leading.
Later this year, valuation rolls that detail every property in the country from 1855 onwards and contain tens of millions more names will be added to ScotlandsPeople. Members realise that paying rates was never popular, but the records that they have generated give a wealth of fascinating information. The related name index that we have created will allow searches of intercensus years and enhance the information that is already available in census records.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
I am afraid that I will need to make progress.
From next year, digital access to 3 million images of the kirk session records will be made more widely available by subscription through ScotlandsPeople. Some kirk session records go back to the reformation, but most of them date from the late 17th century. As well as the sometimes unhealthy concentration on the sexual misdemeanours of parishioners, the session clerks reported on local events—for example, on witches in the Borders and the passing through of the Jacobite army. Those records are a priceless and unique resource for both family and social history.
National Records of Scotland makes available more than 50 million images of records that are held in a wide range of archive collections in its historical search room through the virtual volumes system. Those images act as surrogates for the original documents and allow researchers to view and copy information without retrieving original items. To give members some context, around 66,000 digital images were viewed in the search room in 2008; that number increased to nearly 121,000 in 2010. National Records of Scotland is investigating the wider use of those images.
National Records of Scotland works closely with RCAHMS and the National Library of Scotland on the ScotlandsPlaces website, which brings together data from the three organisations. Maps, plans, photographs of sites and buildings, archaeological reports on historic and prehistoric sites, tax rolls and other related records provide the user with a unique guide to places in Scotland over time.
As we know, digital history provides huge opportunities for education, and National Records of Scotland’s education service provides fantastic opportunities for connections. We should be enthused about our digital heritage and its capacity for reaching out, connecting with people, and inspiring and attracting visitors. I completely agree with the sentiment that combining that with a tourism drive is important. Indeed, that will be reflected in the homecoming drive over the next few years, particularly to 2014.
As well as connecting people with past generations and places and linking up diaspora Scots, the digital services provide a real stimulus to ancestral and heritage tourism. That is a valuable and expanding market that attracts visitors who stay longer, return more often, travel more widely to see their ancestors’ places, and ultimately spend more in support of our economy.
The digital future of our past is not just about conserving and recording; it is about telling our stories, and understanding more about ourselves and our people. Scotland has one of the most interesting stories in the world to tell, and our digital translation is leading the world. I am sure that colleagues agree that it is right that members should recognise and celebrate it.
I move,
That the Parliament celebrates Scotland’s rich and varied heritage and the contribution that it makes to the lives of Scotland’s people and to its economy; recognises the growing interest in exploring personal and family histories; welcomes steps to embrace the most modern technologies through initiatives such as the Scottish Ten, a project that uses 3D digital scanning to present and record Scotland’s five iconic world heritage sites alongside five outstanding international heritage sites, and applauds the use of those technologies to engage young people, and people around the world, in their cultural heritage.
15:39
From the early years of photography on Calton hill in the 1840s and the establishment of the camera obscura in Edinburgh during the 1850s, we have been fascinated by the way that technology allows us to see and capture the world around us. From those early efforts, we have looked for new and better ways of preserving the images of buildings, people, places and objects for our pleasure and study and to preserve images that might be in danger of being irretrievably lost.
The digitisation of our heritage is an important part of the work of recording and making accessible many aspects of our heritage, so the debate is a useful way of recognising the good work that is being done by many of our heritage and culture agencies.
However, if I may say this gently, the Government motion is a little bit limited and a little bit disappointing in its scope. The motion quite rightly recognises the work that is being done by Historic Scotland and the Glasgow School of Art, which are working together on an extremely interesting and innovative project that will allow them to capture in 3D 10 world heritage sites. The motion also recognises the work of the National Records of Scotland, particularly in making family records more readily available. However, our disappointment stems from the fact that there are so many other examples of groundbreaking, innovative and world-class projects happening here in Scotland, many of which are being undertaken by Government agencies and non-departmental public bodies, which are not recognised in the motion. I am genuinely very pleased that the cabinet secretary addressed more widely the issues raised in our amendment as well as those in her motion.
As the member will appreciate, given her colleague’s remarks about the University of Dundee, had we named every organisation, the motion would perhaps have run to a page and a half. I am glad that she appreciates that such a wide range of organisations is involved. Given recent developments with the international conference, it was appropriate to recognise the start of the scanning of the old and new towns of Edinburgh. I completely agree that a wide range of organisations is involved and I am more than happy to have paid tribute to them all in my speech.
I thank the cabinet secretary for that explanation. I hope that it means that the Government will be able to support our amendment.
If we really want to celebrate and recognise the value of the digitisation of our heritage, we should celebrate the contribution of all those successful projects and all the agencies in a comprehensive way. As I said, that is what inspired our amendment. I hope that the Government understands that that is what we are trying to do and that it will support us in it.
Digitisation is an important tool and the quality of digitised images is improving all the time, providing access for research and study. It allows access over great distances and ensures that valuable or fragile documents are available to read or to see by anyone with a good broadband connection—my colleague Mark Griffin will say more about that later.
However, access to the original is also important and a digitised version can only—at least with current technology—be a substitute or a surrogate for the real thing. I was allowed access to some of the items in the Murray archive, which was acquired by the National Library of Scotland. One of the many wonderful exhibits that it contained was a draft of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” by Byron. The document had the poet’s handwritten notations and corrections in the margin and to be able to see it at close quarters was a moment that could not be replicated by the best of digital archives. Similarly, I am looking forward to seeing the Scottish ten project come to fruition, but having had the privilege of visiting St Kilda, which was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, I know that the digitised version, even in 3D, will not be able to capture the feeling of utter remoteness and the raw beauty of the island—or the strength of the wind that it experiences even on a beautiful summer’s day.
Similarly, many of Scotland’s museums and galleries are now digitising their collections, which can be an excellent tool for them and for education and study. However, in 2009-10 Titian’s painting Diana and Actaeon moved from Edinburgh to Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen. Some 140,000 people took the opportunity to see that work in their own town or city. I am sure that some of those who went along to those exhibitions were already familiar with the painting, perhaps from illustrations in books or from postcards—and yes, perhaps from a digitised version—but at the end of the day 140,000 people took the time to go along to their local gallery to see the real thing. It seems that people prefer, where possible, to see the real thing and will make the effort to do so when they are given the opportunity. While we are on the subject, perhaps the cabinet secretary might like to indicate in closing when next we might see works from our national collections being made available in towns and cities outside Edinburgh.
As we look forward to the reopening of the Scottish national portrait gallery in December, perhaps we might see some of its collection go on tour in the new year, which would allow the celebration of its refurbishment to be shared by many more people. Frankly, I am disappointed that the Titian tour seems to have been a one-off. If we are to capitalise on the interest that was generated by that painting’s exhibition around the country, it is important that we continue to provide opportunities for people to see our national collections in their local place.
If used properly, our digitised collections can also be part of our tourism strategy, by showing the best of Scotland in an easily accessible way. However, collaboration between our agencies is important so that, for example, VisitScotland knows what images are available on Scran and Scran knows the type of marketing campaign that VisitScotland has planned. That will enable us to think about how the two can be brought together. In talking of Scran, we should recognise that it is one of the largest online facilities in the UK. It has some 360,000 digital resources, which support more than 4,000 schools, libraries and colleges, and it makes a significant contribution to the curriculum for excellence.
The contribution that the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland has made to the digitisation of our records is an early example of excellence. For a number of years now, through Canmore and PASTMAP, RCAHMS has led the way internationally in such work. Canmore is a searchable map-based database of buildings and archaeological sites, while PASTMAP is the point of entry for five separate databases that cover the built environment. The resource that they provide is envied by other countries, and the collaboration with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales that has been in place since 2003 is extremely successful.
The motion refers to the work of the National Records of Scotland in making family records more accessible, and there is no doubt in my mind about how valuable a resource it is. Like many others, I have used the records of Scotland to trace my family history. From time to time, it was an extremely frustrating exercise, but it allowed me to contact family members of whom I was not previously aware. It also allowed me to dispel a long-standing family myth about the origins of the man who was thought to be my great-great-grandfather. I say “thought to be” because it transpired that the man in question was not related to me at all. It remains a mystery how that connection was ever made. I am afraid that that is a story for another day, but one that is beyond even our national archives.
In order to do that work, I had to use the English records system, too, and to switch back and forth between the two sets of records. To trace my Irish heritage was even more difficult, as some of the Irish records were lost as a result of the burning of the Irish records office in 1922. However, suffice it to say that the digitised records of the archives that are held across these islands were of tremendous help, and I hope that it might be possible for the National Records of Scotland to follow the example of RCAHMS and to find a way to work with its neighbours to make the process even easier than it is now. It might even get yet another starring role on “Who Do You Think You Are?”—who knows?
I close by offering a word of praise for the many conservators, archaeologists, architects and information technology officers who make the important decisions about how to manage our heritage, what to manage and in what way, because we depend on them to get it right. In times of budget cuts, the work that they do in backrooms up and down the country must not be overlooked.
I move amendment S4M-01023.1, to leave out from “growing interest” to end and insert:
“work being carried out by Historic Scotland and its partners on the Scottish Ten project to scan digitally and record both Scottish and international heritage sites; acknowledges that encouraging and investing in the digital future of Scotland’s heritage should go hand in hand with encouraging more visitors to internationally renowned heritage sites; recognises that the use of modern technologies should complement and interact with any tourism strategy, including genealogical tourism; applauds the ongoing work of Scran in digitising and increasing access to images and media from museums, galleries and archives, and the work of Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland in digitising and increasing access to the built environment such as archaeological, industrial and maritime sites, ancient monuments and a wide range of architecture; understands that Scran works in partnership with over 300 cultural institutions in Scotland and the rest of the UK, and with this example in mind, calls on the Scottish Government to encourage a UK-wide approach to the digitisation of family and birth records, linking the Scottish national records with other UK records to further raise interest in the exploration of personal and family histories, and commends the work of Historic Scotland and the National Records of Scotland, estimated by SPICe to be facing a cut of approximately 30% and 35% respectively in the Spending Review period.”
15:48
Scotland’s heritage does not speak just of our past; it speaks of who we are. From crannog to castle to computer, there is much in the cultural, antiquity, visitor and tourism sector that not only advertises Scotland to the world, but brings our ancestry to the fore and speaks to who we are as a nation, the flesh of our flesh and the bone of our bone.
Although I am proud of the physical ancestry of place that we have—the museums, galleries, castles, libraries and collections—particularly in my region of Glasgow, where we see such truly inspiring centres as Kelvingrove, the Burrell collection, Scotland Street school, the new Riverside museum and St Mungo’s, which have fired the imaginations of generations of Scots and visitors alike to see the times before them and the world around them, I think that it is right that we try to widen the appeal of such centres and others to those who perhaps cannot cross a sea, but who can click a mouse.
I am slightly old-fashioned and I love to see the physical depth and texture, and to smell the musty years, of an exhibit, but I recognise that there are many exhibits that neither I nor anyone else will be able to see as they are lost to fragility and decay. In those cases, a digital representation, rather than being a poor proxy is, in fact, the only way to bring an object, manuscript or artefact to a wider audience.
The cabinet secretary and Ms Ferguson have, rightly, said much about the Scottish ten project. It is building a fine body of work and it brings together the best of the world with the finest that Scotland has to offer.
However, I will use my six minutes to focus on a slightly different project. It is certainly lower profile and less flash in terms of spiffy graphics and multimedia presentation, but it is no less important in preserving our heritage. It is the intangible cultural heritage in Scotland site, which is run by a team from Edinburgh Napier University and does not focus on swords and spears, ruined dwellings or burial fragments. Indeed, it does not focus on things at all. As the name suggests, the intangible cultural heritage site looks to the traditions, practices, knowledge and skills that are also an expression of a community’s culture. A Borders common riding is therefore as valued as a fisherman’s folk tale, and a local festival is as relevant as the manner of making an Arbroath smokie.
When we look at the living examples of human creativity that have persisted down the years, it truly is incumbent on us to preserve and promote those echoes of our forefathers for the generations to come. I am delighted to see that UNESCO supports the work that ICH carries out and I very much hope that the resource can gain a wider audience in the future.
I am equally enthusiastic about the site. Unfortunately, when I have had meetings with the UK Government, the Conservative minister John Penrose has indicated that the UK Government does not want to recognise intangible heritage in the way that other European and international bodies do. Will the member join me in trying to persuade the UK Government that it is a fantastic resource and a very important part of our heritage?
As I have said for several minutes, I think that the site is a fantastic resource. I support ICH’s work and I support any investment and help that can be given to it, whether it comes from Government at UK or Scottish level, from private sources or from supranational bodies such as UNESCO, which already supports the site. I point out the site to the chamber and I hope to see it continue into the future.
ICH is only one of many digital initiatives that we can be proud of. I acknowledge the attention that has been brought to Scran, ScotlandsPlaces and ScotlandsPeople and I praise the work that has been done by the National Library of Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland to put their collections online.
Much of the main funding for digital initiatives is derived from Historic Scotland. As I said in my intervention, Historic Scotland is one of the organisations that is hardest hit in the whole culture portfolio, with a real-terms cut of 24 per cent. I acknowledge the cabinet secretary’s assurance that that 24 per cent decrease will be met by efficiencies and subsequent further income, but I ask her to monitor the situation in case such offsetting does not occur.
I have a second worry, which is not on the supply side of the equation—we are seeing a huge push to get Scotland’s heritage into the digital realm—but on the demand side. Research shows that there are issues regarding the take-up of broadband in Scotland; I have raised that matter in the chamber before. Broadband is important in ensuring the accessibility of the large data packets that are needed to convey properly the details that are needed to appreciate an object.
Following my colleague Jamie McGrigor’s intervention, the availability of broadband was discussed but the issue is not just availability, but uptake. Uptake in Scotland trails far behind the rest of the UK at 61 per cent, in comparison with the national rate of 74 per cent. My own area of Glasgow has high levels of broadband availability but very low levels of uptake. That has been raised in the chamber before.
I see much to applaud in the motion, which I will support. However, I remind the cabinet secretary gently that putting digital collections online requires funding and Historic Scotland is a vital provider of such funding. As well as putting more of our heritage online, we ask the Scottish Government to do more to promote broadband uptake, so that more people have access to the good work that is being done.
15:55
I am delighted to contribute to this debate on the digital future of Scotland’s heritage.
From my perspective, as a computer science graduate from the University of Strathclyde—in the 1980s, let us say—I can tell Parliament that the technological advances in hardware and software in the past few decades have been incredible and have brought us to the rich place in which we find ourselves today.
Thirty or so years ago there were no PCs, no laptops, no internet and no mobiles, and few, if any, digitised resources. The microcomputer revolution was just about to start and the capabilities of the early machines were pretty limited.
I recall bringing a microcomputer home from work one day. It took both me and my brother to lift it out of the car into the house. When I plugged it in, all it could do was run an old word processor, the name of which I have long since forgotten. Graphics? A graphics circuit board was needed for that, and it did not work.
Back then, using that kind of technology to provide resource material for our schools was a challenge for the creative skills of the talented software engineers of the day, and for the teachers, who were all a bit bemused by the microcomputer revolution.
However, as far as I am concerned that was the start of the technology revolution that has delivered so many benefits to us now and has provided such an incredible library of digitised resources.
I visited the Parliament’s education centre yesterday and saw the amazing resources there. When I saw the scanner equipment that is used to digitise our heritage sites, I was reminded of its ancient equivalent dating back to the 1970s. Picture a book about Rome, with colour pictures of the ruins showing the Colosseum, the Forum and so on. To see those buildings as they were, we had to flip a laminated page with illustrations of the missing bits of the buildings drawn on it and then superimpose that over the original page to see the buildings in their former glory. That was a popular way of illustrating ancient sites, and I suppose it was the best technology of its day. I still have the book.
I was wondering why the staff from the Scottish ten were showing the cover of Deep Purple’s “In Rock” album from 1970, until I realised that, as the minister mentioned, Mount Rushmore had been digitised, too. I am sure that my colleagues will tell us more about the Scottish ten during the debate, and I look forward to that.
One of the other jewels in our digital crown is the advances that have been made in providing access to ScotlandsPeople’s records. Anyone who has seen “Who Do You Think You Are?”, which was mentioned by Patricia Ferguson, cannot fail to have been impressed by the stories of those who have embarked on a journey to discover their family history and origins. I am no different.
I had the great pleasure of visiting the Burns monument centre in Kilmarnock, which has a fantastic genealogy centre where I was able to track down my own ancestors, with the help of the centre staff and my colleague Councillor Hugh Ross, an acknowledged expert in that field. Even within the current limitations of the service being provided to my local authority at the moment, it was a great joy to discover that my great-great-great-grandfather was one Timothy Coffey, born circa 1815 in County Tipperary in Ireland.
The potential is incredible. The fact that there are so many ScotlandsPeople’s records—of births, baptisms, marriages, wills and testaments, deaths and indeed poor law records—is astonishing. I am told that there are about 80 million records online now. Our new body, the National Records of Scotland, is in the privileged position of being the custodian of the history of our people. Immediately, our past becomes our present and we can, in a real sense, bring our ancestors back with us to discover who they were—and who we are.
It is estimated that between 28 million and 40 million people around the world claim direct Scottish ancestry. In America alone, in the 2000 census almost 5 million people reported having Scottish ancestors. Incredibly, that figure rose to 20 million when people cited partial Scottish descent.
The huge potential of that resource for tourism in Scotland is there for all to see. With careful planning, and by opening up visitor opportunities at our genealogy archives, we can plan to develop a new industry from the culture and heritage that our ancestors have left behind for us.
However, we have to ensure that all our data is available, at an affordable price, to all our genealogy centres. I suggest that the recent proposal by the National Records of Scotland to charge about £1,000 per computer to access our own data is unreasonable. I hope that the minister will review that proposal, given the level of investment already made in places such as Kilmarnock.
We have come a long way from the early days that I described, when I was fortunate enough to be involved in the development of digital technologies and resources. Scotland has a mass of data and knowledge about our country and people, and we must share that resource with the world for everyone’s benefit. It may well be a long, long way to Tipperary, but from the genealogy centre in Kilmarnock, it was only a short journey for me—and a few clicks on a PC—to discover my own family’s origins.
I commend the Scottish Government’s initiatives in this area and all the digital innovations that we are about to see. I am delighted to support the Government’s motion.
16:00
I am delighted to speak in the debate. My experience is similar to Willie Coffey’s, in that I had a 20-year career in the IT industry prior to entering politics in 2003. I confess to being a bit of a geek and, yes, I do dream of electric sheep. I cannot express how excited I am at the prospect of laser technology and computer imaging. When I embarked on my career in computing, my vision was for technological revolution, animatronics, the realisation of the Star Trek holodeck and a sci-fi vision of a future fuelled by the imagination of HG Wells and Philip K Dick.
I take this opportunity to express my great sadness at the news that Steve Jobs has passed away. He was a true pioneer of the computing age and brought so many innovations under his Apple brand and advanced digital animation through his work with Pixar.
In the 1980s, history and archaeology were for me the very antithesis of what the computing revolution would be about. I therefore find it very exciting that in the early years of our new century our history, archaeology and heritage have become intertwined with our computing innovation and excellence. Heritage sites throughout the world are in constant danger from the effects of the natural environment, from seemingly benign sources such as the sun, wind and rain to dramatic earthquakes and fire—as we saw in Windsor castle a few years ago—and, regrettably, from human aggression. Who can forget the dismay that was felt around the world when the sixth century Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan were destroyed in a matter of weeks by the Taliban?
It was that incident that prompted the developer of the laser technology used in the Scottish ten, Iraqi-born Ben Kacyra, to establish the CyArk not-for-profit, non-commercial project, which is dedicated to the application of new technology in the documentation of archaeological and cultural heritage resources—particularly threatened architecture—throughout the world. CyArk and the centre for digital documentation and visualisation, which was formed in partnership with the Scottish Government, Historic Scotland and Glasgow School of Art, have worked collaboratively with Scottish Heritage’s Scottish ten project to contribute to the groundbreaking work that has been carried out in capturing and documenting archaeological and cultural heritage throughout the world.
I am delighted that at the inception of the project in 2009 the decision was taken not just to document Scotland’s five UNESCO world heritage sites, but to capture five sites throughout the world. The good will towards, interest in and recognition of Scotland’s expertise in this area generated by the Scottish ten project cannot be overestimated. A New York Times article in 2009 described the technology not as new or unique but as Scotland’s team being on the cultural front line.
When thinking about my speech today, I mused about whether to share, as a Lanarkshire lass, my memories of my experiences of visiting New Lanark. It is the individual interaction and relationship with our heritage that is so vital and important. As a primary 5 pupil, I was lucky enough to visit New Lanark as part of a project to examine the work of David Dale and Robert Owen. New Lanark was very different in those days: there was no visitor centre, and many of the now occupied mills were derelict. However, I was welcomed, along with my classmates, into the home of an elderly resident who had worked in the mills and had lived in the same house her entire life. That personal interaction had a profound effect on me and brought to life the project that I had been working on. It was a unique experience that was of its time and a snapshot that is now gone but for my memory and that of my classmates.
However, digital heritage is of this time, and the work that is being done will ensure that people of all ages throughout the world can share, enjoy and learn from our heritage in digital media form over and over again.
Yesterday evening, I hosted a drop-in event for the National Records of Scotland, featuring the Scottish ten, the genealogy support website ScotlandsPeople and the geographical website ScotlandsPlaces. It was amazing to see not only the work that has already been undertaken in the Scottish ten project—I was particularly interested in the New Lanark stage of the project, which is most familiar to me—but the technology in action as a digital scan of the room was prepared, which we were able to browse on screen. Seeing ourselves in that format presented challenges for some of us who were scanned.
I said at the start of my speech that I am a creature of science fiction and fascinated by the future. However, last night, I was moved by, and interested in, the ScotlandsPeople website, where I was able to trace through birth certificates my maternal great-grandparents and see the record of their marriage in the parish registers. I was also able to see that three generations of my family lived together at the time of one of the censuses from the 1800s. It quickly became apparent to me why genealogy is such a popular hobby or pursuit. Scotland’s economy can certainly benefit from it.
Homecoming Scotland 2009 was one of the largest collaborative tourism initiatives that Scotland has ever staged. The year delivered additional tourist visits from the Scottish diaspora and our indigenous population. It is estimated that £53.7 million of additional tourism revenue was generated for Scotland. As we prepare for a second homecoming in 2014, there is no doubt that Scotland is well placed to meet the expectations of our visitors and to inspire them with its digital heritage.
16:07
A cynical observer, reading that we were to discuss the digital future of Scotland’s heritage, could easily dismiss our proceedings as dry, irrelevant or out of touch. As people say in the Highlands and Islands with heavy irony, “Aye, they talk about little else in Fochabers.”
However, cynics should look at the Scottish ten project, which uses cutting-edge technology to create digital models of Scotland’s five UNESCO world heritage sites and five international sites, and think again. They should look at the 3D scan of the Mount Rushmore national memorial, which has been developed into a photorealistic 3D animation for public education and information, and think again. They should also look at the stunning point cloud format of 3D New Lanark, and think again.
Cynics should also look at the breathtaking work that is being carried out on Skara Brae. As members know, it is one of the most impressive prehistoric sites in Europe and has been well preserved for more than 5,000 years. The scanning will allow preservation and conservation. It will also digitally reproduce what the original site once looked like.
I am sure that we all remember the dusty, traditional and—to be frank—boring museums and libraries of our childhood. Things are different now with our state-of-the-art 3D scanning, which can be used in 3D animation and prints. As we have heard, it has a wide range of uses, such as virtual reality interpretations and interactive education.
Does David Stewart acknowledge that some of us like dusty libraries and museums, that using a computer could direct more people to go and see things in the flesh and that both approaches have equal prominence and importance?
I am happy to share memories of dusty museums with the member.
The scanning technology can also be used for mobile applications and remote access to inaccessible sites. Yesterday, at the excellent presentation that Clare Adamson mentioned, I met Ruth Parsons, the chief executive of Historic Scotland. She told me that, in the near future—indeed, probably very soon—it will be possible to use an iPhone app that uses satellite tracking to provide a personalised tour around New Lanark, for example.
I will give another example. I recently visited Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college in Skye that is part of the new University of the Highlands and Islands, which is in a stunning location. I was shown the well of heritage development, which is a major collaboration involving UHI, the school of Scottish studies at the University of Edinburgh, the National Trust for Scotland and the BBC. The project committee is chaired by the former Runrig star Donnie Munro.
The project, which was launched on 9 December 2010, has taken a wealth of Gaelic and Scots songs, stories, radio programmes, instrumental music and folklore and delivered it live to people all over the world. The aim of the team running the project is to preserve, digitise and make available online thousands of hours of Gaelic and Scots recordings from the 1930s onwards. The team has done five years of intensive work, and I was told that it has 11,500 hours of material that it wants to catalogue—a great task.
The website is a major resource for musicians, researchers and learners of all levels, and it is enjoyed and commonly used by community groups and individuals. The project includes both Gaelic and Scots languages and contributes to economic development. When I visited it, I was given a small gift—which of course I duly declared, Presiding Officer—that included the songs and stories of the oral tradition of Skye and Lochalsh. One of the recordings was of the famous Sorley MacLean, the internationally renowned Gaelic poet and—interestingly enough—an ex-headteacher of Plockton high school. I certainly recommend it to all members.
Such projects are not just a source of information and a portal for our cultural heritage; they are important for employment all over Scotland, from South Uist and Skye to Edinburgh. It is vital that we retain the skills of the people who work on those great projects and use them for the long term.
It is also important to involve everyone in digital projects in the future. Several members, not least Jamie McGrigor and Ruth Davidson, have mentioned the importance of the roll-out of broadband. The cross-party group on digital participation has also mentioned that issue. I will be positive because I believe that the Highlands and Islands Enterprise pilot, which gained funding from broadband delivery UK, is vital. We still have to get the exact locations, but I understand that around 50 villages and towns across the Highlands and Islands will be part of the pilot.
We have to be flexible because we know that there are huge barriers to broadband. It is often slow and expensive, and sometimes the service is intermittent. We need a flexible approach—we have to look at fibre optic, ADSL, wireless and satellite technologies—but I believe that by using all the different technologies we can have much greater access to broadband across the whole of Scotland, particularly in the Highlands and Islands.
I believe that this has been an important debate on which there is a lot of consensus across the chamber. The models that we have discussed, particularly the Scottish ten, are fantastic models for the future. I am personally excited about some of the developments that are happening, and I warmly support the Labour amendment.
16:12
Like many others in the chamber, I welcome the debate. There has been a learning curve for a number of members. There has certainly been support for, as well as some focused concern from, different agencies that are charged with maintaining—if that is the right word—or managing our heritage. The debate highlights the asset that Scotland’s heritage undoubtedly is, but we must acknowledge the not inconsiderable barriers that will, if they remain unaddressed, restrict the access that the Scottish Government recognises should be comprehensive.
Last week, we debated the introduction of Scottish studies into the curricula of both primary and secondary school education. The programme should and must give all our pupils access to our history, geography and culture. It would be passing strange if the work of Historic Scotland, the national library and museum, the Scottish Council on Archives, Scottish Natural Heritage, the Built Environment Forum Scotland and others was not central to their learning.
When Patricia Ferguson made a plea for every organisation to be acknowledged, I had sympathy for the cabinet secretary because there are so many—each of us could mention many just in our own constituencies. They perhaps do not make the same investment in digital evidence as the example that we saw last night, but they provide the book of first entry, if you like, in recording social history at home.
The place of heritage in education is therefore not questioned, and indeed is not new. All the organisations have declared their commitment to their educational programmes in their manifestos and business plans.
My hope for the Scottish studies programme is that all those organisations and agencies become household names in Scotland and that we do not have to see a list of them because they are—as I think they should be—completely integral to life in this country. No one should be in any doubt about their existence, their purpose or their ambitions.
Patricia Ferguson raised a point that focused on the challenge to the Government. She gave the example of the Titian that was toured around Scotland. As somebody who lives in what is considered to be remote and rural Scotland, I know that there is nothing better than getting to come to Glasgow and Edinburgh. For a lot of people—schoolchildren and youngsters, among others—it is no longer unrealistic to find time to visit the central belt and Scotland’s museums. There is a limit to what can be toured around. Such tours should be part of a programme—outreach work is important—but we should not forget that people want to come to the palaces of art and the museums to see the artefacts, too.
I congratulate Clare Adamson on hosting the event in the Parliament last night at which a number of members were introduced to the wonders of the digital age. Being taken on a digital tour of a royal palace such as Stirling castle and the archipelago of St Kilda, which has been mentioned, and then, at the press of a button, zooming in on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, was amazing—and that is just the start. The Scottish ten project is one of a number of fantastic projects and, if we do our job properly, no one in Scotland will be unaware of it.
In addition, at the event we had ScotlandsPeople and ScotlandsPlaces making tracing ancestry accessible—and making it look easy, if only at the time. I think that we all found, among others, our great-grandfathers or great-great-grandfathers last night. Genealogy is a fairly recent tourist attraction and it is attracting ever-growing numbers. The tourism industry is always looking for new attractions, and this one is sure to run and run. The Scottish diaspora are still looking homeward, and they seem more determined than ever to search for family roots, which brings them back to find the tenements or crofts of their forefathers and foremothers. In Highland, we opened a multimillion pound archive centre in 2008. It is based in Inverness but has links and outreach to Caithness, Lochaber and Skye—all areas of clearance and depopulation at various times. It is well placed to attract our people back and help them to trace their roots.
So, both education and tourism could benefit enormously from the digital developments in our heritage industries, if I can give them such an unappealing generic title. However, there are barriers, about which concerns have been expressed elsewhere by the agencies. The biggest barrier in remote and rural Scotland is the lack of broadband, which has been mentioned by David Stewart and Jamie McGrigor. That is a potential barrier to a great deal and must be a consideration. I am not an expert on information technology—quite the opposite, in fact—but I know that, increasingly, education, tourism, business development and growth, cultural expansion, innovation and creativity are all moving onwards in digital time.
I am nearly there.
This is where our ambitions for the digital future of Scotland’s heritage may take some time to be realised. Although we have made the investment and have received the investment from Westminster, as has been mentioned, the Barnett formula rules seem not to apply on this occasion.
I am afraid that you are going to have to finish now, please.
I will finish on an optimistic note. I applaud the work of all the agencies whose work is concerned with our living history. That work is sustaining our natural environment and helping us to understand who we are, where we came from and where we are going.
16:19
We have all mentioned various projects in our areas. If the cabinet secretary had to put them all in a motion, she would probably need a digital archive of her own to hold them all.
The preservation of heritage is extremely important. In Paisley, we have the historic “Arbuthnott Missal”, which is a Catholic prayer service book that survived the reformation. It is the only one of its kind in existence. Many people have not been able to get access to it or see it because it is so precious and so old, but it is now available online. If the Presiding Officer will indulge me, I will read some information about it.
“The Missal, which is locked in a vault at Paisley Library, has only been seen by a handful of people in the past century because of the damage it could suffer through being handled and being exposed to artificial light. Now everyone can flick through its pages”.
However, the next part is a comment on the technology.
“Not quite everyone ... the Missal can only be seen in Internet Explorer using an additional ponderous Microsoft plug-in.”
There are clearly some problems with making things available digitally.
I attended last night’s event; the Scottish ten project brings many things alive again because it enables us to see history. One of the things I found fascinating is that a teacher can walk his or her class through the construction of Stirling castle, demonstrate how it was built and the materials that were used, then dismantle it again, all using the computer technology. In the long term, it could be a wonderful resource.
Fountain Gardens in Paisley has also been used in the project. It is one of the oldest parts of the town and it is named after a fountain in the gardens, ironically. It was used as the template to check the equipment. The old statue that has been there for some time was created by John Love, after whom, incidentally, Love Street is named. That is a place close to my heart because I used to go and see St Mirren play there. I do not think that the gentleman would have thought that, for years to come, people would be saying, “I’ll not be going to that Love Street in two weeks’ time, after that.” However, the friends of Fountain Gardens are looking at investment to improve the statue in the gardens.
For too long, our greatest landmarks have been left in disrepair. Another perfect example—I make no apologies for being parochial—is that we used to have a jail in the county buildings in Paisley, where there is now a 1960s and 1970s modernistic shopping centre. We are the only people with a river running through our town who actually built over it. That was the vision in the past. Alexander Stoddart, the great Paisley sculptor, told me that if we had the vision and the money he could take down that modernist piece of nonsense and rebuild the jail brick by brick. People always talk about these old buildings and the heritage of which they are an important part. With the right technology, we can go into Paisley schools and show pupils what was there in the past. The project is a wonderful step forward.
The ScotlandsPeople family history thing is quite good. I remember when Councillor Jim Mitchell way back in the 1990s decided that Elvis’s family had come from Paisley, and he and I had to go all the way to Edinburgh to research the project. I will not tell members what happened. It was quite a tenuous link. I do not think that he did come from Paisley, but Jim managed to bring the council meeting to a standstill as he serenaded the provost with some Elvis numbers in the five or 10 minutes he was given to speak for.
Willie Coffey is right. So many people are interested in shows such as “Who Do You Think You Are?” It is about tourism and bringing people into industrial towns, or post-industrial towns such as Paisley. Although those towns are not top of the list for people to visit, people want to see the mill that their great-great-granny worked in and hear about the mill lassies and their heritage. These things are important.
Paisley recently had the dubious honour of featuring in “Who Do You Think You Are?” because the Bee Gees come from the town. I apologise for that. It cannot all be good. We have Paolo Nutini and Gerry Rafferty to balance that. I also remember an episode with David Tennant. Like Clare Adamson, I am a bit of a sci-fi geek. I always found it strange that Doctor Who needed to use a TV show to investigate his past when he has a time machine, but nevertheless it was an interesting show. People want to go and see things from their past.
It is interesting that we can show people all over the world Paisley abbey and Paisley’s history. We can sell the town to people who are abroad, to encourage them to come back and see what is available. That goes for other places in Scotland, too; everyone can do it.
As with any nation, if we are to move forward it is important to understand who we are and where we came from—the good and the bad. It is our duty to ensure that we record everything that I talked about for future generations and encourage the hundreds of thousands of Scots who are scattered across the globe to investigate their heritage and come back to Scotland.
16:25
It is good to have the opportunity to speak in the debate and to acknowledge the work that Historic Scotland is doing in partnership with others through the Scottish ten project to digitally record important heritage sites and open up access. The work will assist in the preservation of our important cultural heritage, because changes to sites over the years will be tracked in detail and it will be possible to take appropriate measures to prevent lasting damage or loss.
Education plays an important role in getting children interested in our heritage. By using the digital resources on websites such as Scran and PASTMAP to illustrate the past, we can get children excited about the history of Scotland. We have an opportunity to get schoolkids interested in their heritage by using technology in the classroom, rather than showing them pictures and text from dusty textbooks. Pupils should be able to explore important heritage sites interactively and learn in ways that excite and challenge them.
However, the use of digital material in schools should be not the end of the educational experience but the first phase of learning. The obvious follow-up to exploring a site electronically is a class visit to the site.
In central Scotland, the Antonine wall runs for 60km from Old Kilpatrick on the north bank of the Clyde to Bo’ness on the Firth of Forth. It was designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 2008. The wall cuts across the council ward that I represent, and I grew up in the shadow of Bar hill, where the remains of a Roman fort and bathhouse can easily be found. When I was at school, there was a strong focus on our cultural heritage, and the wall and the Romans often came up in projects, but it was only when we visited the sites that real interest was generated in the history and heritage behind the projects.
With that in mind, the Government should put in place a programme that runs alongside the storing of images, to ensure that the digital students become real-time students who appreciate the range of heritage and culture that Scotland has to offer.
The same can be said for digital tourists. Although it is important to acknowledge the work that Historic Scotland and National Records of Scotland do to digitise collections for future generations, thereby opening up access to their collections for a much wider audience, we must do more to encourage people to visit sites in person. In a recent briefing, the British Hospitality Association said that more than 23,000 people are directly employed in the hospitality sector in central Scotland, which contributes massively to the regional economy. Those employees depend on visitors to the region. More must be done to raise the profile of our world heritage sites through the digital archives.
Third sector organisations are involved. The Croy Historical Society has researched and collated material that relates to the Romans and the Antonine wall and regularly hosts exhibitions to do with local history and heritage. Such voluntary organisations should be applauded for, and supported in, their work to preserve and promote local history. If they could be linked into the project to digitise heritage sites, they might be able to expand and enhance the online experience and perhaps provide a local point of contact for people who want to visit the sites and explore them in more detail.
Mark Griffin might be aware that there was a conference recently on the frontiers of the Roman empire, which was attended by visitors from Germany and elsewhere in Europe. I had the pleasure of meeting a number of people, who must be the member’s constituents, who talked about the wonderful collections. The member is right; there is an international dimension to the issue, but there can also be a very local dimension. It was a privilege to host a conference at which international visitors could discuss and visit the Antonine wall.
I am sure that those people will have been members of the Croy Historical Society. They display massive passion for their local history and heritage and for the Antonine wall, with its links to the rest of Europe. That is exactly the range of local knowledge that we could feed into the national project.
Although I entirely agree that we should be storing the records of such sites digitally and promoting online access to archives of Scotland’s heritage, we have to take on board the fact that not everyone has access to reliable broadband services, as a number of speakers have mentioned.
Does Mark Griffin agree that the problems with broadband exist not only in the Highlands and that there are broadband problems in the central belt, due to the distance along the copper wires to the exchange? Does he agree that everyone in this chamber should back the Scottish Government in pressuring the UK Government to roll out broadband?
You are in your last few seconds, Mr Griffin.
I promise that I did not speak to Bill Walker before, but he has led me on nicely to exactly what I wanted to say. In Cumbernauld, which is an urban area, we have massive problems with access to broadband. It is slow and unreliable and, at peak times, it is non-existent. In a recent written answer, the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment assured me that the funding that had been awarded to the Scottish Government by Westminster for broadband would be invested to provide next-generation broadband in areas that had not been provided for by the market. Given the market failure to deliver reliable broadband services in Cumbernauld, I look forward to the Government investment that will allow my constituents to access the online digital heritage that we have spoken about today.
You must come to a conclusion.
As I said earlier, it is important that we recognise the work that is being done. However, it is of equal importance that we encourage people to visit sites in person. I therefore support the amendment in the name of Patricia Ferguson.
16:32
While researching this topic on the National Library of Scotland’s website, I came across a piece of work by William Topaz McGonagall of Dundee, who is unkindly remembered as the worst poet in the English language. It was entitled, “The Burial of Mr Gladstone, the Great Political Hero”. It was 1898, and Liberals were quite popular in Scotland in those days—I can say that because none of them is here. The poem begins:
“Alas! the people now do sigh and moan
For the loss of Wm Ewart Gladstone,
Who was a very great politician and a moral man,
And to gainsay it there’s few people can.”
I am sure that—political affiliations aside—any of us would be proud to have that verse as an epitaph.
The poem was published as a broadside; broadsides were simple, cheap sheets of paper that were sold on the street for a penny or less by pedlars and chapmen. They were enormously popular in Scotland because of the high rates of literacy here, and they give us a valuable insight into the lives of plain folk. The National Library of Scotland holds a quarter of a million broadsides, and some of them can be read in its digital archive, in a section called, “The Word on the Street”. The collection can be browsed by subject, and it quickly becomes apparent that what sold papers 200 years ago is not all that different from what sells papers today—indeed, the term “gutter press” has its origins in this street literature. Broadsides predated newspapers, which were taxed by the Government and were, therefore, out of the reach of ordinary people.
Media studies is often maligned, which I believe is wrong, because it records and interprets our society. The ability to read broadsides online is a wonderful addition to media education and social history. For example, a modern student looking at those broadsides would realise that taste—especially bad taste—stays fairly constant over the centuries. The National Library’s collection reveals an obsession with ghoulish subjects, such as body snatching, and a morbid market for the last words of condemned men and women as they stepped up to the gallows, as well as an obsession with sex and sentimentality. A real obsession with the sex life of Robert Burns comes through in the collection.
As well as feeding salacious appetites, the broadsides served a serious purpose. They were the principal means of exchanging ideas and, in many ways, they were the internet of the day. They featured a wide-ranging mix of the academic and the scandalous. There was titillation, but they were also an agent for social change and gave the mass of the population a way to challenge the powerful elite. The National Library has digitised 135 political broadsides through its learning zone, which will be really useful in the classroom. One broadside called “Caledonia’s Determination”, from an anonymous radical poet, quite tickled me. It comes from the 1830s, around the time of the Chartist movement, and it reads:
“Caledonia no more shall by Tories be school’d,
Too long by the knaves she's already been ruin’d:
And the Whig's but a Tory in sheep-skin disguise,
On the loaves and the fishes each fixes his eyes”.
The library notes that the broadside may well
“strike a chord with modern-day readers.”
There is much more similar material in public and private collections around Scotland, and it is essential that Scotland has a national strategy for digitising it and linking up cultures throughout the country. The National Library plays a leading role in promoting that, but many other projects have been mentioned today. It is important in putting content online that users can share and use it on sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter without—as George Adam said—needing a complicated Microsoft plug-in to access it.
In that spirit, I highlight David Stewart’s praise for Tobar an Dualchais—or Kist o Riches in Scots—which is a digitised archive of thousands of hours of ordinary people singing and telling stories about their working and family lives. It is based on many of the recordings that Hamish Henderson collected for the school of Scottish studies, which were originally recorded on reel-to-reel tape recorders and wax cylinders. Donnie Munro is the chairman of the project, as David Stewart mentioned, and I spoke to him about the project just before it was launched. He mentioned that when he wanted to access an old song or check some facts during his days in Runrig, he would have to go from wherever he was—Skye, or Lochaber—to the school of Scottish studies. Once there, he would go into the archive, make notes and take them away.
The Tobar an Dualchais website allows young musicians to download thousands of hours of really rare work on their iPods; it is a real inspiration. They can cross-reference different subjects throughout Scotland and click on a map of Scotland’s regions to pull out stories of people’s working lives.
Last week, as Jean Urquhart said, we debated Scottish studies in schools. I think that today’s debate is an extension of that, but it is important for us to remember that heritage is not just about homework. We need a sense of ownership of our culture as a living thing. We have made a lot of progress in getting stuff online, but it is not enough just to create a digital museum.
One big phenomenon on the internet is the mash-up, in which people take pieces of film and music and change them. Millions of teenagers have created their own mash-up versions of scenes from the Harry Potter films and “Star Wars”, for example—
Ms McAlpine, I would be grateful if you could come to a conclusion.
Okay. One of the most-viewed pieces of Scots language on YouTube is a film of the actor Dustin Hoffman looking out over the Manhattan skyline as he praises the culinary delights of stovies in a strong Aberdeenshire Doric. It is comedy, of course, but if our culture and language are to remain vibrant and engaging, we must allow people the freedom to mess around and have fun with them, even if it offends professional sensibilities.
We must remember that the popular culture of the past could be crass and earthy, too. If our digital heritage is to be preserved, it must not be precious. It should be easy and enjoyable to share it and change it—just as easy as it was to buy a broadside from a pedlar in the streets of Edinburgh, Haddington or Dumfries 200 years ago.
We come to closing speeches. I am afraid that I have no extra time to give for interventions.
16:39
The debate has been good, and I have enjoyed it. There have been some good contributions, including that from my colleague Ruth Davidson. She rightly extolled the virtues of the Arbroath smokie—a true triumph of taste—and Joan McAlpine rightly mentioned stovies, which are another Scottish icon.
I associate myself with the very positive comments about the Scottish ten, and I am delighted that two of the three Scottish UNESCO world heritage sites—neolithic Orkney and St Kilda—are in my region. I expect that, like Patricia Ferguson, I am one of the few MSPs to have set foot on St Kilda. I will never forget that when I arrived at the islands on a June morning, the sky went black with the many thousands of seabirds that rose to greet us. That was a breathtaking sight. I climbed to the top of Hirta—the edge of the world. At the top of the 1,300ft cliffs, I peered over and marvelled at how the St Kilda people had surefootedly hopped from one crag to another and had risked life and limb to eke a living from the flesh, oil and feathers of the seabirds that surrounded them. St Kilda had its own biodiversity then—it also had its own Parliament and mail service. Those are the great stories of our heritage.
Anyone who has—like me—been to the Neolithic village of Skara Brae, which the cabinet secretary mentioned, and to the immense stone circle of Brodgar, which are both in Orkney, will know that we in Scotland have one of the most interesting historical and archaeological heritages of anywhere in the world. The images that are available on the Scottish ten website are indeed stunning.
Members have emphasised the importance of Scotland’s heritage to culture and the economy. Genealogical tourism is economically important and has huge potential for growth, given the Scottish diaspora’s size and the ever-growing interest in family history. Today, I had a meeting with the convener of the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs, who told me what clan societies are doing to encourage tourism and said that they would like to do more. He made the point that Jean Urquhart raised about the importance of Scottish history and said that many people who live abroad seem to know more about it than we do.
When people come to Scotland, they like to find their ancestors. People like to find their roots—especially their roots in Scotland. People come to Scotland to find those roots and most of them return. They also pass on the message, which is wonderful.
I came across a website called findagraveinscotland.com. That is nothing to do with “Taggart” or Inspector Rebus; it is run by an organisation that aims to create one central online facility for all Scotland’s burial and cremation records, which must be a good thing.
Like others, I commend the work of the team at the National Records of Scotland—under the outstanding leadership of my friend George MacKenzie—on the ScotlandsPeople website, which is a world-class resource. I also thank him and his colleagues for their excellent work in setting up the “Scottish Register of Tartans” database—a digital masterpiece that was established as a result of my member’s bill in the previous parliamentary session. Members might be pleased to learn that, since the tartan register came into existence in February 2009, 480 new tartans have been added to it, which is more than double the expected 100 per year. The register is, of course, a permanent, accessible and sustainable record of all our existing historic tartans, in addition to the new tartans. That is another example of a first-class digital heritage resource of which we can be proud. I am proud to have introduced the bill for that.
The National Library of Scotland holds many documents that are fundamental to our heritage. The NLS has a very good digital gallery with a vast array of material that covers subjects as diverse as Churchill’s career as a Dundee MP, the medical history of British India and golf in Scotland from 1457 to 1744. Many of the NLS’s sources can be used by schools.
That takes one back to that glorious moment in Scotland’s history that followed the act of union—Scotland’s great enlightenment and our influence in creating the western society in which we now live. In that respect, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We must strive to maintain the legacy and to improve on it. The importance of libraries and museums to education and improvement is enormous.
On a negative note, I mention again that, although broadband take-up across the UK has increased to 74 per cent, Scotland has the lowest take-up, at only 61 per cent. Others have mentioned that.
The Scottish Conservatives stand ready to support the good and incredibly important work that is being done to digitise our heritage. We will be positive about further initiatives—especially those that are geared to exploiting the economic opportunities that arise from our heritage. At the same time, we recognise the budgetary pressure that public sector organisations face. Historic Scotland’s budget will be cut by 24 per cent in real terms—from £47 million this year to £33 million in 2014-15. The challenge will therefore be to protect key projects that are of the highest quality.
16:45
The debate has been thoughtful and we have heard from members about their enthusiasm for Scotland’s heritage, digitised or otherwise.
Mark Griffin, Jamie McGrigor and others made an important point about the availability of broadband. We tend to take it for granted that everyone has a computer with broadband access and knows how to use it. However, as we have heard, that is not always the case. To echo Bill Walker’s point, I live in Glasgow and have working farms on my doorstep but, although it is not a particularly remote or even rural area, the broadband service to my and my neighbours’ homes is at best intermittent.
I came across one lady who was a farmer and who was using her Avanti dish to feed her chickens.
I am not sure whether Mr McGrigor is recommending that as a way of getting a better connection but, personally, I do not think that I will try it.
I was taken with the cabinet secretary’s enthusiasm for the work at Bannockburn. I, too, look forward to seeing the new centre, as I think that it will be absolutely tremendous. A number of years ago I was in a situation similar to hers and I remember waxing equally lyrical about the tremendous work that was being done at Culloden to make the facilities there much more interactive and interpretive. It occurred to me that, by the time that the new Bannockburn centre opens, the Culloden facilities will be almost 10 years old. I wonder how we ensure that the technology keeps up to date and is constantly refreshed, so that Culloden does not somehow become second fiddle to Bannockburn.
Willie Coffey talked about the number of people of Scots descent who live in America. I was once there in an official capacity and did a morning radio interview, during which I was told confidently by the interviewer that 5 million people in America could trace direct ancestry to Scotland. I then had another interview at 5pm that evening and was told equally confidently by another interviewer that there were 15 million such people—I did not like to claim credit for the increase on the basis of my broadcast. However, it is always worth making that point. I agree with Willie Coffey that the Robert Burns monument in Kilmarnock is a fitting location for the genealogy and other records of the town of Kilmarnock. It is a beautiful and fitting place for that.
Clare Adamson rightly mentioned the unfortunate passing of Steve Jobs. We should pause to think about the opportunities that he made available to so many people and we should be encouraged by the fact that he was someone who broke rules and boundaries and who, frankly, did not take no for an answer.
Like Ruth Davidson, I was intrigued by David Stewart’s comments about dusty libraries and museums, because I quite like dusty libraries and museums, too. Then I realised that, as I am sure Ruth Davidson will agree, perhaps the issue is just that we had the benefit of Kelvingrove and Mr Stewart did not.
I take issue with Jean Urquhart, but only slightly. It was not my intention that every organisation that is involved in the digitisation of our heritage should somehow be listed and recorded. I just felt that the Government motion singled out a couple of organisations but that many more needed to be mentioned and recognised. The debate has borne out that point.
With regard to Jean Urquhart’s point about the Titian, I agree that many people want to visit the national galleries in Edinburgh, or the Kelvingrove museum or the Burrell collection in Glasgow, but the fact remains that 140,000 people turned out to see that one painting. That tells us something about the iconic status of some works of art and items in our national collections and we should not underestimate that. We should recognise that there are a variety of approaches.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am sorry, but I am quite pushed for time.
I always forgive George Adam for being parochial. That is always very interesting, and I am partial to that kind of attitude. I am genuinely sorry that Paisley has lost its historic court and prison, but if George Adam wants to wait a month or two, he would be welcome to visit Maryhill burgh halls with me when they reopen. Maryhill was originally a police burgh. We never had a court, but we still have our cells.
Like Mark Griffin, I live quite close to the Antonine wall. The area that I live in has less obvious remnants of the wall, but we must remember that it is incredibly important to the people who live around it. I am delighted that the Antonine wall has been recognised as part of a world heritage site with all the other walls of the Roman empire around Europe. That is a wonderful example of work across countries that can be done and is done to make something significant and worth while.
I got a bit worried again by Jamie McGrigor’s speech. He talked about Arbroath smokies and stovies. I had visions of us having to try to work up a sniff-and-taste digitised facility to get things right, but I am sure that he did not mean that.
Today, I hosted a visit to the Parliament by pupils of Balornock primary school and their visitors from Greece, Spain and Portugal. They asked me questions about my work and what it is like to speak in the chamber. I explained to them that I would be speaking this afternoon, and they naturally wanted to know what I would be speaking about. That made me pause because what we are discussing is not the easiest concept to explain to a bunch of 10-year-olds. I admit that they got the digitisation bit no problem, but I think that they struggled a little bit with the idea of heritage to begin with. Those young people came to the Parliament to experience the atmosphere and scale of the building and, when they go back to their school, they will look up online some of the things that we have discussed. Their generation moves freely between one medium and another, and I hope that they do not think that our deliberations were dry or dusty; I hope that they think that they are relevant.
Today is national poetry day. In closing, I want to praise the Government. I do not do that very often, but I genuinely want to do it today. The fact that the Government now has a Robert Burns app online shows that technology and art working together can really make a difference.
16:52
The debate has been very good and extremely interesting. It is right and proper that we have had the opportunity to recognise the work of all the organisations—there are many of them—that are involved in digital heritage in Scotland.
George Adam never fails to get Love Street into debates. A neat connection was made between John Love, the Fountain Gardens and the Scottish ten.
I was particularly intrigued by Jamie McGrigor talking about findagraveinscotland.com. I understand that we were sent an e-mail that said that it had gone live.
I was fascinated by Ruth Davidson’s subtle reference to her love of dusty museums. I thought that that was a reference to what the Conservative Party headquarters might be under Murdo Fraser.
I want to address some of the issues that have been raised. Our motion does not refer to any organisation. We could not reasonably do that, as many members have said. Therefore, we will not support the amendment in Patricia Ferguson’s name. However, I commend all the contributions that have been made around the chamber. We have had an opportunity to air and celebrate much of our culture.
For those who are not familiar with the Tobar an Dualchais or Kist o Riches project, which David Stewart and Joan McAlpine mentioned, I had the pleasure of officially launching it. To click on a map and hear not just the songs, but the voices and accents of people from different parts of the country was fascinating.
I am genuinely disappointed that the cabinet secretary said that the Government party will not support our very reasonable amendment, not least because if we had stuck to speaking to the Government’s motion, we would, in strict terms, have spoken about only the Scottish ten and family records. Our amendment has given members the opportunity to range much further and wider across Scotland’s heritage. That is a good thing, and I thought that the Government would have applauded that.
I was going to address some of the points that Patricia Ferguson made. I genuinely think that the debate covered all the areas. In recognising that the use of technology in relation to the Scottish ten is only one example of many, we can celebrate the National Library of Scotland, the National Records of Scotland, RCAHMS and a number of other organisations.
Patricia Ferguson asked about collections. She will be familiar with the artist rooms project that works with the Anthony d’Offay collection to make sure that there are exhibitions across Scotland. I am delighted that Linlithgow Burgh Halls will be hosting artist rooms shortly.
Ruth Davidson asked about monitoring Historic Scotland’s budget, which I am more than happy to do. That is why I tried to give some reassurance that although the figures look quite severe, there are mitigations, particularly for the census work of the National Records of Scotland and for Historic Scotland.
Willie Coffey mentioned Kilmarnock. The family history element at the Burns Monument Centre is an example of what can be done, from which other people can learn.
An interesting point in the debate was about the pace of change of the digital agenda. Who knows where we might be in a few years’ time? Indeed, at the conference that I mentioned reference was made to the fact that in only a few years’ time, we could have contact lenses that could provide digitally scanned images to take people through Stirling castle or wherever else.
Clare Adamson was absolutely right to refer to the passing of Steve Jobs, because his vision and his drive to develop the digital agenda have made a major contribution to the world. That must be recognised and it was right that we had an opportunity to do so in the debate.
I reassure Jean Urquhart that Historic Scotland is already involved in the Scottish studies qualification.
A number of people made important points about broadband. Yes, it is about infrastructure—I referred to Alex Neil’s forthcoming announcement—but it is also about participation, because, as Ruth Davidson said, places such as Glasgow do have broadband. Surely all the wonderful examples, whether song, writing, pictures or culture, would help create demand, particularly from older members of society and those—perhaps in Glasgow—who are not accessing such things now. Family history is fascinating, particularly at certain points in people’s lives.
The celebration of what we have has been fantastic. I thank those who have praised the Scottish ten, which is making international as well as local links.
Jamie McGrigor and Patricia Ferguson are among the few people in this chamber who have visited St Kilda. Alasdair Allan might have visited it—he is telling me that he represents it. It is a dual UNESCO world heritage site, which is managed by the National Trust for Scotland and is home to the wonderful seabird colony to which Jamie McGrigor referred, but very few people will ever have the opportunity to visit it. Is it not fantastic that the Historic Scotland Scottish ten project has digitally recorded it? The National Records of Scotland has managed to work with Hebridean Archives to conserve and digitise the last school log book for St Kilda, which provides a schoolteacher’s account of life on the island from 1901 to its evacuation and therefore documents a wonderful legacy.
We have an opportunity to celebrate technology and we have great opportunities to take it forward. This is not just about culture, the economy and tourism; it is about shaping and using a technology that will offer boundless opportunities as we go forward.
I thank everybody for their contributions to the debate. The passion, energy and enthusiasm that members have shown will stand Scotland in very good stead as we develop a digital future for Scotland’s heritage.