National Records of Scotland Customer Advisory Panel meeting

The National Records of Scotland (www.nrscotland.gov.uk) has recently had its first Customary Advisory Panel meeting, for which Emma Maxwell from Scottish Indexes (www.scottishindexes.com) has kindly written up a brief summary of proceedings at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/national-records-scotland-listening-responding-emma-maxwell-euzwe/, as one of the attendees. I am unclear if the NRS will be publishing minutes from the meeting, although to its credit minutes from various other meetings are available to read in its Publications section at https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/, the last being from a meeting in June 2025 - if so, I will share the link in due course.

Emma's post discusses how the NRS believes it not to be a "secretive organisation" and that it "wants to develop a clear strategy for change", one aspect of which is Emma's ability to actually report on the proceedings, which is definitely progressive. Following a recent survey of users carried out by Emma through her Scottish Indexes platforms, she raised the problems experienced by people turning up at the NRS's Historic Search Room without the relevant documentation to register, as well as other user issues. 

As it evolves it will be interesting to see how the remit of this new panel differs from the previous ScotlandsPeople User Group. As a user of historic records, I would be particularly interested to know what new records are being acquired by the archive, what is being catalogued, what is being digitised, what conservation issues might be underway with particular records, if there are any issues with the infrastructure preventing access to particular collections, and what partnerships the NRS might be undertaking to take its remit beyond Edinburgh. 

Fingers crossed NRS has indeed crossed into a new more open era!

* Don't forget that the next free-to-attend Scottish Indexes Conference will take on Saturday 22 November - details via the team's website.

(With thanks to Emma Maxwell) 

Chris 

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