1.  The National Library of Scotland is a Non-Departmental Public Body funded by the Scottish Office. Its sponsor is the Scottish Office Education and Industry Department, and its administration is supervised by a Board of Trustees. It is the largest library in Scotland, with over six million books, and it is among the half dozen largest libraries in the British Isles. It has extensive collections of printed material (maps, music, newspapers and journals, as well as books) and large collections of manuscripts. The Library has had the right under successive Copyright Acts to acquire all books published in the United Kingdom. The Library also acquires, mainly by purchase, but also by gift and deposit, older books, maps and music, modern foreign publications, and manuscripts. The preservation of the nation's heritage is, therefore, at the centre of the Library's activities.

  2.  The National Library of Scotland acts as an advisory body to the Heritage Lottery Fund for applications relating to printed and manuscript acquisitions of relevance to Scotland, and to projects concerned with library, archive and information services in Scotland.

  3.  The National Library of Scotland has also applied for funds from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and is likely to submit future applications for the acquisition of heritage material and for support of capital projects aimed at improving access to the Library's existing heritage collections.

  4.  The criteria for considering applications appear sound. The Library very much welcomes the introduction of a two-stage application procedure for projects over £500,000, and for projects under £500,000 would encourage the indication of support in principle, dependent on the satisfactory submission by applicants of detailed information. The Library has recent experience of making an unsuccessful application to the Heritage Lottery Fund before the introduction of the two-stage process, and had misgivings about the cost and appropriateness of being asked to provide information to assessors that would not normally be available until the stage of detailed design. In order to encourage applications from a wide range of bodies, from national institutions to local charities, it is necessary to contain the costs of the applications process. In this connexion, the willingness to consider some of the costs of applications as partnership funding for successful projects is also to be welcomed.

  5.  The impact of the Heritage Lottery Fund on the library, archive and information world is potentially great. A number of major projects are receiving support, and there is the exciting possibility of using new technology to make the contents of repositories throughout the country more accessible than ever before. The conversion of catalogues and other finding lists to electronic form, and the digitization of heritage collections, can enhance many fold the value of the investment already made in libraries, to the benefit of students at all levels, scholarly research and lifelong learning. The preservation of library materials, often fragile and impossible to replace, is a further activity where the Heritage Lottery Fund can make an enormous contribution to ensuring that an important part of the nation's heritage is not lost to this, and future, generations.

  6.  In the experience of the National Library of Scotland, the courtesy and helpfulness of the staff of the Heritage Lottery Fund are to be commended, and the quality of published guidelines and other printed material produced by the Fund has improved considerably since its inception. The Library would hope that the staffing of the Fund is maintained at levels that allow rapid and effective responses to be made.

June 1998