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 teams up with SWIG
UMIS is collaborating with the Scottish Word and Image Group on a conference entitled Excavating Time - click on the conferences link abnve for details.
Contextual Wrappers 2 Project
UMIS members were involved in the online consultation for the JISC-funded Contextual Wrappers 2 project, led by the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. Exploring issues for the resource discovery of University Museum collections as part of the Discovery programme, the findings of the online surveys and consultation session are now available on the CW2 blog.
UMIS Conference Presentations
The recent UMIS conference explored the changing nature of the relationships between universities and museums - we have now added speakers' Powerpoint presentations to the website. Click on the conferences link above.
Revealing the Hidden Collections
UMIS has recently completed a two-year project to create collection-level descriptions for all the Accredited Scottish university museums, together with improved electronic access to item-level catalogues and images. Click Search our Collections above.
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.
SFC Reporting template
Click here to view the document from the Scottish Funding Council setting out the agreed metrics for which SFC-funded UMIS members have to provide data. Other UMIS members are asked to compile the same statistics for comparative purposes.
