Two million Scottish treasures to be shown to world for first time

Published on Tuesday 12 January 2010 20:55

THE hidden treasures of the vast collections of Scotland's universities are to opened up to a worldwide audience for the first time through the internet.

• The insect collection at the Glasgow University's Hunterian Museum dates back from the 18th century

The nation's universities hold a combined collection of more than 1.8 million artefacts, ranging from priceless works of art, relics of Scotland's Pictish past, treasures from ancient Egypt, curios of natural science and unrivalled collections of coins and medals.

But only a fraction of the various objects have ever been seen by members of the general public.

This year, however, in a groundbreaking project led by Aberdeen University, the details of the combined collections of nine of Scotland's universities will be made available on the web, opening up the institutions' scientific and cultural heritage to a global audience for the first time.

The project, "Revealing the Hidden Collections", will run until June and will see important collections and artefacts recorded electronically, photographed and the details uploaded to the Culture Grid, a national database run by the Collections Trust, the Museums Libraries and Archives Council, and the European Commission.

Amy Miller, of Aberdeen University, said: "We have some outstanding collections, as do the other universities. These are of exceptional importance to the nation, but currently less than 40 per cent are catalogued – on paper or electronically – and less than 8 per cent of collections can be viewed on the web."

The intention, she explained, was to provide detailed descriptions and photographs of as many of the prized exhibits as possible and to give general descriptions of each university's specific collections.

Ms Miller said: "Many of these hidden treasures might not have seen the light of day for some years. A lot of the items are packed away and people simply are not aware of their existence.

"There is no way for people at the moment to know what we have, because there is nowhere for them to go."

Ten years ago, Aberdeen University established a giant database of the 70,000 items from its Marischal Museum collection to enable the artefacts to be made available for pupils and students across the country.

The partners in the project are the universities of Dundee, St Andrews, Stirling, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Heriot-Watt and Robert Gordon, and the Glasgow School of Art.

They are all members of the University Museums in Scotland group, which has received 240,000 towards the 318,000 project from the Scottish Funding Council.

Dr Alan Knox, the project director and the head of museum collections at Aberdeen University, said: "If people are to get the most out of these outstanding collections, they first need to know what we have, and the internet is the perfect tool for making this available to a worldwide audience."

He added: "Scottish universities hold 32 per cent of the country's materials on history of science, 31 per cent of the nation's coins and medals, 24 per cent of its fine art, 20 per cent of natural science collections and 18 per cent of world culture, all with a disproportionately high representation of nationally and internationally important items."