Early oral history recording.
Photo from Tobar an Dulchais web site.
EDINA newsline
April 2007: Volume 12 Issue 1
Early oral history recording.
Photo from Tobar an Dulchais web site.
More information is now available about EDINA’s role in the Tobar an Dualchais project (see Newsline 11.4).
To help set up the digitisation process, EDINA and the University of Edinburgh Information Services have been contracted to produce a production control application and a cataloguing application for web-based input of metadata. Once digitisation is well under way, EDINA will also develop and host the Tobar an Dualchais online service and catalogue.
Launched last year, the multi-million-pound Heritage Lottery-funded project will preserve, digitise and make available online more than 12,000 hours of recordings from the archives of BBC Scotland, the National Trust for Scotland and the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh. The Tobar an Dualchais project is based at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic- language college on Skye.
The collections comprise a wide variety of material, including:
The project will employ more than 20 people, with skills in administration, computing, Gaelic and Scots. Training will also be provided in digitising, cataloguing and editing.
Digitising will be carried out in Edinburgh and South Uist in the Hebrides, and people will also be employed as home cataloguers throughout Scotland. It is hoped that Tobar an Dualchais will stimulate the culture and economy of different parts of Scotland, including some of the areas which provided many of the original recordings.
The first phase of the project will cost around £2.9 million. Just under half of the funding will come from the Heritage Lottery Fund, with the remainder from a wide range of organisations, reflecting a high level of interest in this very exciting project.