A COLLECTION of rare manuscripts dating back to the eleventh century is gathering dust in a room in Edinburgh because there is no money to put it on public display.
The collection of 7000 rare volumes was donated to the National Library of Scotland by St Benedict's Abbey in Fort Augustus up to five years ago. The most recent donation, also the oldest written Gaelic text in Scotland, dates back to 1080.
However, staff at the National Library claim they have been unable to catalogue the works because the Scottish Office will not provide the #50,000 costs. The library has seen a 10% cut in staffing levels.
A spokesman said: ``Although the library has always tried to protect the public from the direct consequences of these cuts, the stage has now been reached where public services are affected and there has been a general increase in the time taken to make books available through catalogues.
``In these circumstances, we have given priority to modern Scottish publications because we feel that is our prime responsibility.
``We are continuing to press the Scottish Office for an appropriate level of funding and at the same time seeking other sources of finance to supplement the shortfall in Government funding.''
The books and manuscripts were given to the National Library to make them more easily available to scholars and researchers unable to travel to Inverness-shire.
The Abbot of St Benedict's Abbey, the Right Reverend Gerard Dillworth said: ``We loaned the library these books and manuscripts to make them more accessible to the public and we're no further forward than we were five years ago. It would take peanuts to resolve the matter.''
The SNP said the gulf in funding between Scotland and England meant the rare artefacts might take years to catalogue properly and become available for public scrutiny.
Mr Paul Scott, SNP Arts spokesman, said the crisis was caused by a lack of resources for Scotland's National Library compared with #500m which is being spent on the new British Library in London. He said: ``The National Library is a cultural and intellectual nerve centre of Scottish life and is an invaluable source for academic researchers from Scotland and across the world.
``It is a shameful example of the neglect of a central feature of Scottish life under the present constitutional arrangements.''
A spokeswoman from the Scottish Office said it was increasing its running cost allocation to the National Library by #90,000 for it to determine spending priorities.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article