Women authors were the focus of activity by the National Records of Scotland (NRS) during the Themed Year. For example, in March NRS published an article on three Scottish authors, Annie Shepherd Swan, Josephine Tey and Dorothy Dunnett, to mark International Women’s Day and Women’s History month and also to celebrate Scotland’s Year of Stories. Linked to the article, NRS also published two new entries on the Hall of Fame for Susan Edmonstone Ferrier (1782-1854), novelist, and Nan Shepherd (1893-1981), author and college teacher. Alongside this activity, NRS made a successful submission to the Scottish Council on Archives ‘Twenty Treasures’ initiative, with ‘Scotland’s Stories’ as the theme for submissions.
SLIC, the Scottish Library and Information Council, ran a wide range of initiatives throughout the year and many individual libraries hosted their own events and projects. SLIC ran the ‘Keep the Heid and Read!’ campaign, which asked people to pledge six minutes devoted to reading and included a book giveaway to celebrate Year of Stories. The campaign was a success, celebrating the power of reading, libraries and good mental health, and more than 470,000 minutes of reading were pledged by members of the public.
The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) used Year of Stories when planning their ReSourcE magazine for summer 2022, using the campaign logo on the publication and also linking to the Year of Stories landing page in the RSE President’s introduction column. They explained that the RSE’s Fellowship and the Young Academy of Scotland harbour a rich heritage of stories and a wide range of powerful methods of storytelling across countless disciplines, and the magazine offered a window into this resource, with features including Hebridean singer, Julie Fowlis, looking at how Gaelic is woven into the fabric of Scotland and James Robertson looking at the magical and unique mid-20th century home of Scottish poet, Hugh MacDiarmid. The RSE also signed up their August series of summer events – Curious 2022 – to the Year of Stories Partner Events Programme.