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School of Scottish Studies Archive

The School of Scottish Studies was established in 1951, at the University of Edinburgh, to gather, preserve, research, and publish material relating to the cultural traditions and folklore of Scotland. The extensive collections, include a sound archive comprising some 33,000 recordings, a photographic archive containing thousands of images from the 1930s onwards, a small film and video collection and a manuscript archive. Collecting has focused on Scottish life, folklore and the traditional arts. Material comes from communities throughout Scotland and its diaspora. The main languages of Scotland - Gaelic, Scots and English - are all represented including many dialects that are no longer used.

This database contains basic information on some of the main sound collections in the School of Scottish Studies Archives. The fieldwork undertaken by students, lecturers and associates of the School of Scottish Studies is listed along with various donated collections. Field recordings forming part of these collections have been digitised and are generally available to listen to by request on our remote streamer (subject to any copyright or GDPR restrictions) but commercial/published or broadcast items have not been digitised. Please note that many of the donated collections and more recent field recordings are not yet listed, so please ask the SSSA team if you are looking for something in particular.