Introduction
Passion, research, creativity, daring - all have contributed to the diverse and immensely rich collections of more than 1.8 million items in Scottish Universities. Today, they comprise 32% of the country's materials on history of science, 31% of the nation's coins and medals, 24% of its fine art, 20% of natural science collections and 18% of its world culture collections. Collections in four universities, including the entire holdings of the Universities of Aberdeen and Glasgow, have been Recognised as nationally significant.
Our museums grow out of Scotland's distinctive and ancient traditions of higher education, inspiring explorers, scientists, scholars, artists and others in almost every field of endeavour. They play an increasingly important role in the cultural life of the nation, offering exhibitions activities and resources for everyone.
UMIS: University Museums in Scotland exists to foster the preservation, care and interpretation of historical and cultural collections in Scottish Universities, and to promote the interests of the collections.
UMIS Conference Presentations
This year's UMIS conference explored the changing nature of the relationships between universities and museums - we will be adding speakers' Powerpoint presentations to the website soon.
Revealing the Hidden Collections
Scottish universities hold a high proportion of Scotland's nationally important museum collections - in total over 1.8 million items. Over 60% of these collections are uncatalogued with information on just 7.5% available on the web and 1.8% have images. This represents an enormous barrier to use. The University of Aberdeen is leading an 18-month project with eight other UMIS members to create collection-level descriptions for all the Scottish university museums, together with improved electronic access to item-level catalogues and images.
Response to National Strategy Consultation
UMIS has submitted its response to the consultation on the National Strategy for Scotland's Museums. You can download a pdf document of our submission here.
