Discover Issue 48, Summer 2023

Excerpt from 'Sharing Scotland’s stories, told in all her many languages', page 3:

At the time of writing, we’re about to launch our first dual-language exhibition at our George IV Bridge building in Edinburgh. Scotland has had a rich Gàidhlig storytelling tradition going back hundreds of years. And just like parts of Europe had the Brothers Grimm ensuring fairy tales were preserved for future generations, we had our own collector – John Francis Campbell, more locally known as Iain Òg Ìle (young John of Islay).

He worked tirelessly with local communities to ensure folktales were preserved as the oral tradition dwindled in the mid-19th century. Read more about Campbell and Highland storytelling traditions on pages 22–25.

Also now open at our George IV Bridge building is an exhibition in conjunction with Waverley Care, Scotland’s HIV and Hepatitis C charity, marking its 50-year anniversary. We spoke to Criz McCormick, one of the researchers involved in the exhibition.

He takes us through Scotland’s AIDS experience – the crushing stigma people faced in the 80s and 90s, the misinformation about the virus, the pioneering work that went into designing Scotland’s first – and one of the world’s first – AIDS hospices, Milestone House.

There’s grief, hard work and a tremendous sense of camaraderie and love. Read his interview on pages 14–17.

Poetry features strongly in this edition with our cover story on one of Scotland’s most celebrated poets and playwrights, Liz Lochhead (pages 9–13). Liz served as Scotland’s Makar from 2011 until 2016 and is widely viewed as an expert on Burns. She’ll tell you she’s not an expert but her appreciation and contemporary interpretation of the man, his work and his many loves capture audiences in ways that only she can.

We have some significant works relating to Burns going on display this year in our ‘Treasures’ exhibition, so we spoke to her about the Bard. More importantly, we spoke to her about her own work and legacy in Scotland.

Shane Strachan is this year’s Scots Scriever. The Scriever initiative is a year-long residency offering writers the opportunity to creatively respond to the national collections in the Scots language.

Shane has been with us for almost a year now, focusing on the Doric/Aberdeenshire dialects. He tells us, on pages 26 29, why he has chosen to use the words and voices of weavers and fishermen from the early 18th century as the material for his poetic work.

Also delving into our archives is Steven Harvie, who is with us while working on his PhD on one of Scotland’s most beloved 20th-century authors, Muriel Spark.

The Muriel Spark archive is in our collections and Steven has taken great joy in going through it. Its contents tell a great story about Spark’s writing process and offer more insight into her personality, including a writer’s idiosyncrasies. Read all about her on pages 18–21.

I hope you enjoy these stories.

Amina Shah
National Librarian and Chief Executive