NRS suspends access to some off-site stored records

The world's unfunniest comedy continues at the National Records of Scotland (www.nrscotland.gov.uk) with regards to access for records:

A routine health and safety inspection of storage racks has raised concerns and we have had to take the regrettable step of temporarily suspending access to some of our store rooms at West Register House.

We are working at speed to find safety measures that we can use to mitigate the risk and allow access to resume. 

We will update information here when access becomes available. If you have already requested records for a booking that are affected, you will be contacted directly by email. If you have concerns please email: lsrhe@scotlandspeople.gov.uk

The full service update is available at https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/about-us/service-status. 

Many records consulted at the NRS have to be ordered in advance, as they are stored offsite, but it seems that in addition to the limited appointments and cap on numbers of documents that can be consulted, various record cannot even be ordered in now. I am sure this is as much of a frustration for the archivists, but it is just the latest example of how inadequate our national archives are in the 21st century.

(With thanks to the Scottish Genealogy Network via Facebook)

Chris

My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.