Collections and Approaches:
researching the countryside
16 November 2007
Led by Ms Kirsty Lingstadt, RCAHMS, in collaboration with Dr Margaret Mackay, University of Edinburgh.
Workshop Summary
This is the first of four workshops sponsored by the Royal Society of Edinburgh which contribute to the 100th anniversary programme of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland in 2007-2008.
The workshop will focus on resources and methodologies for the study of the countryside in Scotland and their application in a range of contexts including those offered by internationally-ratified directives and national park incentives.
Visual, oral, documentary and material sources will be explored as well as broad themes. Case studies of two community-based projects will illustrate the interaction of local interests and resources with national collections.
Importantly, this workshop will seek to identify questions and topics which will animate future research on the Scottish countryside and to establish links which can stimulate and facilitate such projects.
Organiser Biographies
Kirsty Lingstadt joined RCAHMS in 2005 to work with the collections particularly looking at the development of collections management systems and developing collections based projects to increase access.
Previously worked for Fife Council Museums Service, Methil Heritage Trust, Keeper for the Scottish Mining Museum and was Museums Manager for South Lanarkshire Council. Within all these organizations she undertook a wide variety of tasks from managing staff to organizing and managing the collections, researching and arranging exhibition programmes and associated activities across a wide variety of venues as well as running community outreach programmes.
Dr Margaret A. Mackay has been a Commissioner on the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland from 1997 to 2007 and chairs its Collections Committee. She is Director of the School of Scottish Studies Archives at the University of Edinburgh, and Director of the European Ethnological Research Centre there. She is Senior Lecturer in Scottish Ethnology with research interests which include the use of oral sources for community studies, culture transfer and adaptation among Scottish emigrants to Canada and elsewhere as well as the ethnology of religious expression.
supported by