Chamber
Meeting of the Parliament 06 October 2011
06 Oct 2011 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament
Item of business
Heritage (Digital Technology)
I am delighted to contribute to this debate on the digital future of Scotland’s heritage.
From my perspective, as a computer science graduate from the University of Strathclyde—in the 1980s, let us say—I can tell Parliament that the technological advances in hardware and software in the past few decades have been incredible and have brought us to the rich place in which we find ourselves today.
Thirty or so years ago there were no PCs, no laptops, no internet and no mobiles, and few, if any, digitised resources. The microcomputer revolution was just about to start and the capabilities of the early machines were pretty limited.
I recall bringing a microcomputer home from work one day. It took both me and my brother to lift it out of the car into the house. When I plugged it in, all it could do was run an old word processor, the name of which I have long since forgotten. Graphics? A graphics circuit board was needed for that, and it did not work.
Back then, using that kind of technology to provide resource material for our schools was a challenge for the creative skills of the talented software engineers of the day, and for the teachers, who were all a bit bemused by the microcomputer revolution.
However, as far as I am concerned that was the start of the technology revolution that has delivered so many benefits to us now and has provided such an incredible library of digitised resources.
I visited the Parliament’s education centre yesterday and saw the amazing resources there. When I saw the scanner equipment that is used to digitise our heritage sites, I was reminded of its ancient equivalent dating back to the 1970s. Picture a book about Rome, with colour pictures of the ruins showing the Colosseum, the Forum and so on. To see those buildings as they were, we had to flip a laminated page with illustrations of the missing bits of the buildings drawn on it and then superimpose that over the original page to see the buildings in their former glory. That was a popular way of illustrating ancient sites, and I suppose it was the best technology of its day. I still have the book.
I was wondering why the staff from the Scottish ten were showing the cover of Deep Purple’s “In Rock” album from 1970, until I realised that, as the minister mentioned, Mount Rushmore had been digitised, too. I am sure that my colleagues will tell us more about the Scottish ten during the debate, and I look forward to that.
One of the other jewels in our digital crown is the advances that have been made in providing access to ScotlandsPeople’s records. Anyone who has seen “Who Do You Think You Are?”, which was mentioned by Patricia Ferguson, cannot fail to have been impressed by the stories of those who have embarked on a journey to discover their family history and origins. I am no different.
I had the great pleasure of visiting the Burns monument centre in Kilmarnock, which has a fantastic genealogy centre where I was able to track down my own ancestors, with the help of the centre staff and my colleague Councillor Hugh Ross, an acknowledged expert in that field. Even within the current limitations of the service being provided to my local authority at the moment, it was a great joy to discover that my great-great-great-grandfather was one Timothy Coffey, born circa 1815 in County Tipperary in Ireland.
The potential is incredible. The fact that there are so many ScotlandsPeople’s records—of births, baptisms, marriages, wills and testaments, deaths and indeed poor law records—is astonishing. I am told that there are about 80 million records online now. Our new body, the National Records of Scotland, is in the privileged position of being the custodian of the history of our people. Immediately, our past becomes our present and we can, in a real sense, bring our ancestors back with us to discover who they were—and who we are.
It is estimated that between 28 million and 40 million people around the world claim direct Scottish ancestry. In America alone, in the 2000 census almost 5 million people reported having Scottish ancestors. Incredibly, that figure rose to 20 million when people cited partial Scottish descent.
The huge potential of that resource for tourism in Scotland is there for all to see. With careful planning, and by opening up visitor opportunities at our genealogy archives, we can plan to develop a new industry from the culture and heritage that our ancestors have left behind for us.
However, we have to ensure that all our data is available, at an affordable price, to all our genealogy centres. I suggest that the recent proposal by the National Records of Scotland to charge about £1,000 per computer to access our own data is unreasonable. I hope that the minister will review that proposal, given the level of investment already made in places such as Kilmarnock.
We have come a long way from the early days that I described, when I was fortunate enough to be involved in the development of digital technologies and resources. Scotland has a mass of data and knowledge about our country and people, and we must share that resource with the world for everyone’s benefit. It may well be a long, long way to Tipperary, but from the genealogy centre in Kilmarnock, it was only a short journey for me—and a few clicks on a PC—to discover my own family’s origins.
I commend the Scottish Government’s initiatives in this area and all the digital innovations that we are about to see. I am delighted to support the Government’s motion.
16:00
From my perspective, as a computer science graduate from the University of Strathclyde—in the 1980s, let us say—I can tell Parliament that the technological advances in hardware and software in the past few decades have been incredible and have brought us to the rich place in which we find ourselves today.
Thirty or so years ago there were no PCs, no laptops, no internet and no mobiles, and few, if any, digitised resources. The microcomputer revolution was just about to start and the capabilities of the early machines were pretty limited.
I recall bringing a microcomputer home from work one day. It took both me and my brother to lift it out of the car into the house. When I plugged it in, all it could do was run an old word processor, the name of which I have long since forgotten. Graphics? A graphics circuit board was needed for that, and it did not work.
Back then, using that kind of technology to provide resource material for our schools was a challenge for the creative skills of the talented software engineers of the day, and for the teachers, who were all a bit bemused by the microcomputer revolution.
However, as far as I am concerned that was the start of the technology revolution that has delivered so many benefits to us now and has provided such an incredible library of digitised resources.
I visited the Parliament’s education centre yesterday and saw the amazing resources there. When I saw the scanner equipment that is used to digitise our heritage sites, I was reminded of its ancient equivalent dating back to the 1970s. Picture a book about Rome, with colour pictures of the ruins showing the Colosseum, the Forum and so on. To see those buildings as they were, we had to flip a laminated page with illustrations of the missing bits of the buildings drawn on it and then superimpose that over the original page to see the buildings in their former glory. That was a popular way of illustrating ancient sites, and I suppose it was the best technology of its day. I still have the book.
I was wondering why the staff from the Scottish ten were showing the cover of Deep Purple’s “In Rock” album from 1970, until I realised that, as the minister mentioned, Mount Rushmore had been digitised, too. I am sure that my colleagues will tell us more about the Scottish ten during the debate, and I look forward to that.
One of the other jewels in our digital crown is the advances that have been made in providing access to ScotlandsPeople’s records. Anyone who has seen “Who Do You Think You Are?”, which was mentioned by Patricia Ferguson, cannot fail to have been impressed by the stories of those who have embarked on a journey to discover their family history and origins. I am no different.
I had the great pleasure of visiting the Burns monument centre in Kilmarnock, which has a fantastic genealogy centre where I was able to track down my own ancestors, with the help of the centre staff and my colleague Councillor Hugh Ross, an acknowledged expert in that field. Even within the current limitations of the service being provided to my local authority at the moment, it was a great joy to discover that my great-great-great-grandfather was one Timothy Coffey, born circa 1815 in County Tipperary in Ireland.
The potential is incredible. The fact that there are so many ScotlandsPeople’s records—of births, baptisms, marriages, wills and testaments, deaths and indeed poor law records—is astonishing. I am told that there are about 80 million records online now. Our new body, the National Records of Scotland, is in the privileged position of being the custodian of the history of our people. Immediately, our past becomes our present and we can, in a real sense, bring our ancestors back with us to discover who they were—and who we are.
It is estimated that between 28 million and 40 million people around the world claim direct Scottish ancestry. In America alone, in the 2000 census almost 5 million people reported having Scottish ancestors. Incredibly, that figure rose to 20 million when people cited partial Scottish descent.
The huge potential of that resource for tourism in Scotland is there for all to see. With careful planning, and by opening up visitor opportunities at our genealogy archives, we can plan to develop a new industry from the culture and heritage that our ancestors have left behind for us.
However, we have to ensure that all our data is available, at an affordable price, to all our genealogy centres. I suggest that the recent proposal by the National Records of Scotland to charge about £1,000 per computer to access our own data is unreasonable. I hope that the minister will review that proposal, given the level of investment already made in places such as Kilmarnock.
We have come a long way from the early days that I described, when I was fortunate enough to be involved in the development of digital technologies and resources. Scotland has a mass of data and knowledge about our country and people, and we must share that resource with the world for everyone’s benefit. It may well be a long, long way to Tipperary, but from the genealogy centre in Kilmarnock, it was only a short journey for me—and a few clicks on a PC—to discover my own family’s origins.
I commend the Scottish Government’s initiatives in this area and all the digital innovations that we are about to see. I am delighted to support the Government’s motion.
16:00
In the same item of business
The Presiding Officer (Tricia Marwick)
NPA
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-01023, in the name of Fiona Hyslop, on the digital future of Scotland’s heritage.15:25
The Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs (Fiona Hyslop)
SNP
Scotland’s heritage is one of our greatest assets and it attracts many visitors from overseas. Scotland offers not only tremendous natural beauty but an incr...
Jamie McGrigor (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Con
Does the cabinet secretary appreciate that, in my region of the Highlands and Islands, a great many people cannot access broadband properly? What can be done...
Fiona Hyslop
SNP
One thing that can be done is to ensure that the United Kingdom Government invests. When I met Jeremy Hunt only a few weeks ago, we discussed the very point ...
Ruth Davidson (Glasgow) (Con)
Con
The detailed spending plans show that the budget for Historic Scotland, which is doing a lot of the digital work to put archives on the internet, is being cu...
Fiona Hyslop
SNP
No, it will not. The Labour Party’s amendment raises concerns about the spend in the area. I reassure members that Historic Scotland’s front-line services wi...
Jenny Marra (North East Scotland) (Lab)
Lab
Does the cabinet secretary recognise the exciting work that the University of Dundee has done on its family history project in its digital archives and the d...
Fiona Hyslop
SNP
I am more than happy to recognise the University of Dundee and, indeed, all the partners. Scotland really is world leading. We think nothing of debating the ...
Hanzala Malik (Glasgow) (Lab)
Lab
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
Fiona Hyslop
SNP
I am afraid that I will need to make progress.From next year, digital access to 3 million images of the kirk session records will be made more widely availab...
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn)
Lab
From the early years of photography on Calton hill in the 1840s and the establishment of the camera obscura in Edinburgh during the 1850s, we have been fasci...
Fiona Hyslop
SNP
As the member will appreciate, given her colleague’s remarks about the University of Dundee, had we named every organisation, the motion would perhaps have r...
Patricia Ferguson
Lab
I thank the cabinet secretary for that explanation. I hope that it means that the Government will be able to support our amendment.If we really want to celeb...
Ruth Davidson (Glasgow) (Con)
Con
Scotland’s heritage does not speak just of our past; it speaks of who we are. From crannog to castle to computer, there is much in the cultural, antiquity, v...
Fiona Hyslop
SNP
I am equally enthusiastic about the site. Unfortunately, when I have had meetings with the UK Government, the Conservative minister John Penrose has indicate...
Ruth Davidson
Con
As I have said for several minutes, I think that the site is a fantastic resource. I support ICH’s work and I support any investment and help that can be giv...
Willie Coffey (Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley) (SNP)
SNP
I am delighted to contribute to this debate on the digital future of Scotland’s heritage. From my perspective, as a computer science graduate from the Univer...
Clare Adamson (Central Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
I am delighted to speak in the debate. My experience is similar to Willie Coffey’s, in that I had a 20-year career in the IT industry prior to entering polit...
David Stewart (Highlands and Islands) (Lab)
Lab
A cynical observer, reading that we were to discuss the digital future of Scotland’s heritage, could easily dismiss our proceedings as dry, irrelevant or out...
Ruth Davidson
Con
Does David Stewart acknowledge that some of us like dusty libraries and museums, that using a computer could direct more people to go and see things in the f...
David Stewart
Lab
I am happy to share memories of dusty museums with the member.The scanning technology can also be used for mobile applications and remote access to inaccessi...
Jean Urquhart (Highlands and Islands) (SNP)
SNP
Like many others in the chamber, I welcome the debate. There has been a learning curve for a number of members. There has certainly been support for, as well...
Jean Urquhart
SNP
I am nearly there.This is where our ambitions for the digital future of Scotland’s heritage may take some time to be realised. Although we have made the inve...
The Deputy Presiding Officer (Elaine Smith)
Lab
I am afraid that you are going to have to finish now, please.
Jean Urquhart
SNP
I will finish on an optimistic note. I applaud the work of all the agencies whose work is concerned with our living history. That work is sustaining our natu...
George Adam (Paisley) (SNP)
SNP
We have all mentioned various projects in our areas. If the cabinet secretary had to put them all in a motion, she would probably need a digital archive of h...
Mark Griffin (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Lab
It is good to have the opportunity to speak in the debate and to acknowledge the work that Historic Scotland is doing in partnership with others through the...
Fiona Hyslop
SNP
Mark Griffin might be aware that there was a conference recently on the frontiers of the Roman empire, which was attended by visitors from Germany and elsewh...
Mark Griffin
Lab
I am sure that those people will have been members of the Croy Historical Society. They display massive passion for their local history and heritage and for ...
Bill Walker (Dunfermline) (SNP)
SNP
Does Mark Griffin agree that the problems with broadband exist not only in the Highlands and that there are broadband problems in the central belt, due to th...