Exclusive:Inside plans to transform the century-old National Library in Edinburgh founded by McVitie's biscuit money

The National Library of Scotland is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

It was founded by a generous grant from the entrepreneur behind one of Britain’s much-loved biscuits and a donation of books from the Faculty of Advocates, which could no longer manage its extensive collection.

Now the National Library of Scotland (NLS) is marking its 100th year as it unveils plans for a major overhaul of its landmark Edinburgh building to create a weddings and events space and “let in light” to the 1950s construction.

The National Library of Scotland is based on George IV Bridge in Edinburgh. | NLS

The library is planning a major appeal to revamp its George IV Bridge building to "open it up" to the public.

Due to be unveiled in its next five-year strategic review in September, Amina Shah, national librarian and chief executive of NLS, said the project would involve creating a new, flexible, “open” space in the library where large scale events could be held.

Plans are also likely to include ways of making the building, which she described as “austere”, more welcoming to passing visitors, including the creation of more natural light and increased accessibility.

The National Library’s history

The existing building was finished and officially opened in 1956, more than three decades after the concept of the National Library was established in an Act of Parliament - and following years of delays in the wake of the Second World War.

The collection was boosted by a £100,000 donation from Sir Alexander Grant, managing director of digestive biscuit maker McVitie and Price, followed by a second grant of the same size to help fund the new building.

It is believed that by the time the plans eventually came to fruition, architectural tastes had changed, making the new construction, on the site of the former Sheriff Court in Edinburgh, less well received.

Ms Shah said: “When you walk past it, it's austere. It's a listed building, so it's difficult, but we need to let light in.”

She referenced a motto used by Fife-born industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who donated millions to establish free public libraries around the world.

She said: “[Andrew] Carnegie said ‘let there be light’. There is this whole idea about libraries and light, but actually our building looks closed from the outside. We want to open it up.

“We feel really passionately and strongly that Scotland deserves a beautiful national library space.”

However, Ms Shah would not be drawn on the potential cost of the project, saying it was still in its early stages. She recently consulted colleagues at Cambridge University library, which held a capital appeal for a staged project, which she said could be used as a blueprint for the plan.

“A lot,” she answered in response to a question about the cost. “I think the key is for us to think about stages. We could do bits and pieces in a planned and organised way, rather than asking for an infinite amount of money, which it might be difficult to achieve.

“We will definitely start looking at that seriously in our next financial strategy. Just as our ancestors decided it would be a good idea to have a National Library without a building at all, just £100,000 to start, they built that on a conversation and an ambition and certainly, we’ll be thinking about what the library could do in the future.”

Amina Shah is national librarian and chief executive of the National Library of Scotland. | NLS

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Ms Shah hopes the library can shake off an historic image of it as a closed, formal building for specialist researchers. Visitor numbers to the library have increased by 30 per cent since the previous five-year strategy was launched in 2020. However, Ms Shah feels there is more to be done.

She said: “We're keen to have a more welcoming space on George IV Bridge. The main building of the National Library was built at a time where it was about keeping books in and people out. But now, we want to be really much more welcoming, so that it's not intimidating for people.

“The library and its collections belong to everybody in Scotland, and we want to make sure that everybody knows that, and that they feel welcome and we reach out to them.”

Work has already begun to change the public impression of the library, including the creation of a new “treasures gallery”, established in 2022, which allows the library to rotate some of its collection on display to visitors and tourists.

NLS has also recently begun to tour rare and interesting books around Scotland, including Mary, Queen of Scots’ last letter, which will next year be loaned to Perth Museum.

“It's just a connection with history,” Ms Shah said. “When people actually see the live document, they get really excited and thrilled by it. So we're really excited to dip our toe in the water of this new way of working with local libraries and museums.”

Money has been made available through external funders for this specific project, However, the library is looking at other ways of making money out of its assets to expend the initiative.

Ms Shah said the library needed to look to alternative funding sources, including potentially charging certain users.

A pilot programme with VisitScotland has seen US tourists given special tours of Gaelic archives, which are the largest of their kind in the world.

“We're working on a small-scale project at the moment with VisitScotland, where we're taking visitors from the States and giving them tours of our Gaelic collections,” said Ms Shah. “They pay for that in advance.

A 1939 letter delaying the construction of the National Library of Scotland building due to the Second World War. | NLS

“These are the sorts of things that we're really keen on looking at. We want to attract more tourists. We want people to be able to drop in and be wowed by the amazing collections that we've got, and feel curious to find out more about their Scottish heritage. We're trying our best with limited resource or within the resource that we have.

“If we want to survive, we need to innovate and thrive, and we need to think of different ways of doing things. And what we have found is that many people from overseas do want to support us.

“We want to make it easier for people to join the library, whether that’s for people in Canada or America who could use our resources online. We’re working on ways to make that more accessible. We don’t want to monetise it for people from Scotland, but in our new strategy we are thinking about entrepreneurial ways forward.”

Ms Shah hopes a new events space could emulate the New York Public Library, which features in the Sex and the City film as a possible wedding location for Carrie and Mr Big.

“There, they do weddings and they do events,” she said. “They have a brilliant event space. Currently, our event space isn't really of that size. It's great, we've got a brilliant event program, but we just feel that with a much more flexible, opened-up space, we could offer so much more for the people of Scotland.”

She is also aware of the public interest in “the stack” - the 11-storey book and paper archive beneath the George IV Bridge library’s ground floor.

“People love the stack,” she said, referencing a recent renovation to the V&A’s East Storehouse in London, which has opened up the workings of its own archive collection to visitors.

“People can see the conservators at work and you can see the behind the scenes. It used to be that we would try to hide away all that, but there's some really interesting ways, I think, that museums and libraries and others are working to let people see that stuff.”

Ms Shah describes the work of the library as being like an iceberg,

“It's not just all floating above the water,” she said. “What you see is one thing, but actually there's a lot of work that goes underneath, and it's very important work. It's really important that we continue to collect, protect and share the nation's printed and recorded memory. That's what we're here for.

“It's important because [the behind-the-scenes work] is part of that iceberg. We want to stimulate people's curiosity about it.”

Despite the 11 storeys, the library is running out of space in its archive, storing a copy of everything printed, from knitting patterns and football programs to government information, children's books, adult books and maps.

A second storage building was taken on in the 1980s on Edinburgh’s Causewayside. However, Ms Shah estimates that has just a decade of capacity now still remaining. This is despite work to maximise storage, including the creation of a dedicated factory in Edinburgh’s Sighthill area that makes special preservation boxes designed to be space effective.

She said the library was in discussion with other organisations, including National Museums Scotland, National Galleries Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland, over possible collaboration on storage and archiving.

The renovation plans come as the library marks its centenary year with a new exhibition launching next week dedicated to the importance of libraries. Dear Library will feature the favourite books of celebrities ,including Ian Rankin, Pat Nevin and Val McDermid, as well as Alan Cumming, and is billed as a “love letter to libraries”.

A man who needs no introduction to fans of crime fictions, Rebus-creator Ian Rankin is taking part in numerous events at this year's festival. We're particularly looking forward to 'The Whisky Knight' at 10pm on Friday, September 12. A mixture of chat and song, it will see Sir Ian joined by singers-turned-crime writers James Yorkston and Colin MacIntyre, along with debut novelist Natalie Jayne Clark. Thie audience will also be able to enjoy a wee dram. | AFP via Getty Images

Titled Dear Library after a poem by Jackie Kay, whose archive the library acquired last year, the exhibition also features librarians and libraries in popular culture, protest banners and badges reflecting libraries under threat, and vintage film footage bringing past libraries to life.

Ms Shah said: “While there's a huge amount to celebrate and think about for us - as in what is it to be a national library and in this day, and what will it be in 100 years’ time - we have a leadership role for the sector.

“We need to think about the network of really strong school libraries, public libraries, university libraries, mobile libraries, college libraries, prison libraries. I like to think of it more as a connecting role, so that we bring all these others together and consider what we can do for them.

“Libraries as a concept is something that if it wasn't invented already, you'd make it up. Communities coming together to share knowledge, share information.

“It's one of the last really accessible spaces that belong to people and I personally feel that we need it more than ever in an increasingly divided world. Libraries and literacy are the foundation blocks in communities that allow some of that to happen. You know, they support well-being. They support equalities. They empower individuals.”

However, the number of libraries is declining, both in terms of public facilities and in Scottish schools.

A recent report from the Scottish Book Trust found the number of libraries in Scotland had dropped from 604 in 208 to 507 last year. A separate study from the National Literacy Trust found reading enjoyment among children and young people in the UK had fallen to its lowest level in two decades.

“Sometimes, libraries are absolutely recognised for the brilliant community, engaging and empowering resources that they are, and they can be right in the centre of the hub of the community,” said Ms Shah, who worked in the public library sector in Dundee for 14 years. “But other times they can be neglected. And funding is challenging for local authorities and they have to make difficult decisions.

“But it's actually the most vulnerable people in society who use libraries often, and often the people who are the policy makers don't realise that.”

She added: “Everything is under threat at the moment, because finances are tough and we’re living through really tough times. What I would say is that when we've been through tough times as a nation before, that's when libraries were built - to support people because of tough times - and we need to remember that.”