This timeline focuses on Scotland’s response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and includes all major developments. Each entry includes a link to further information and/or relevant official reports, policies and guidance. The resource has been published by SPICe .
Publications/Resources
Official Publications news and updates – including digital resources
United Nations online exhibition for 75th anniversary
To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, the Dag Hammarskjöld Library is presenting an exploration of 75 key documents that have shaped the United Nations and our world.
The documents selected honour the historic breadth of the Organization’s work in the areas of peace and security, humanitarian assistance, development and human rights.
Scottish Parliament summer recess 2020
The Parliament will be in recess from 27 June to 9 August inclusive. However, it is expected to meet weekly each Thursday throughout the summer period. These will be virtual meetings, other than on 9 and 30 July, when there will be hybrid meetings, with Members in the Chamber and able to participate remotely.
Details will be published in the Business Bulletin.
The Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee will meet in private on Monday 29 June 2020. The agenda can be found here.
During the summer recess, the Business Bulletin will be published once a week on each Monday, from Monday 29 June until Monday 10 August 2020, when normal publication will resume. There may also be additional publications of the Business Bulletin in relation to days when parliamentary business is scheduled.
You can keep up-to-date with news from the Scottish Parliament by subscribing to their eBulletin
Up-to date Covid- 19 resources can be found on the SPICe blog
OECD digital hub for coronavirus (COVID-19) content
For the next few months, all content related to the global coronavirus crisis is fully accessible for all users on the OECD iLibrary.
A trusted source of timely, reliable information, OECD is making all content related to coronavirus COVID-19 easily accessible via a dedicated digital hub – www.oecd.org/coronavirus. Updated on a daily basis, the site provides a single entry point for OECD’s latest evidence, analysis and advice on economic and social policy responses to the pandemic.
All of the OECD iLibrary content is freely available to anyone with a residential address in Scotland and registered with the National Library of Scotland. There is guidance on how to register and access this resource.
Coronavirus Statutory Instruments Dashboard
The national effort to tackle the Coronavirus health emergency has resulted in UK ministers being granted some of the broadest legislative powers ever seen in peacetime. This Dashboard produced by the Hansard Society highlights key facts and figures about the Statutory Instruments (SIs) being produced using these powers in the Coronavirus Act 2020 and other Acts of Parliament.
Originally posted on Hansard Society website 7th May 2020
Scottish Parliament eBulletin
Don’t forget to subscribe to the Scottish Parliament’s eBulletin for weekly updates on what is happening in the Scottish Parliament.
As well as the daily business included are the SPICe resources for Covid-19, details of the committees calling for views on the impact of Covid-19 on Scotland’s culture and tourism sectors and Equalities and Human Rights It also lists all current consultations
United Nations oral history interviews and transcripts
Did you know that the UN Dag Hammarskjold Library offers a digital collection of oral history interviews and transcripts with senior UN officials and diplomats that offer insider views and personal perspectives on the Organization’s work to maintain world peace?
We invite you to explore this collection in the UN Digital Library.
You can also access this content by selecting the “Images and Sounds” collection from the UN Digital Library home page:
| United Nations Digital Library SystemUnited Nations Digital Library System – United Nations Digital Library Systemdigitallibrary.un.org |
Explore the world’s history by listening to (some of) the voices that influenced and shaped it!
United Nations – COVID-19 response
Most likely you are aware that the UN system, in particular the World Health Organization, has been at the forefront of the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
There is an abundance of information being released everywhere and it can be confusing, misleading or completely erroneous at times. Please take a look at the following resources that may help you navigate this information and also lead you to more substantive materials that your library users/clients may be asking for.
Main COVID-19 UN web portalhttps://www.un.org/en/coronavirus
UN Secretary-General’s statements, briefing papers and reportshttps://www.un.org/en/coronavirus/un-secretary-general#reports
Recorded statements by UN officials on COVID-19 (UN WebTV)http://webtv.un.org/search/?lan=English&cat=covid-19&sort=date
Web page pointing to COVID-19 information resources of the UN systemhttps://www.un.org/en/coronavirus/information-un-system
The United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library offers the following FAQs in three languages (Via Ask DAG service):
- English: http://ask.un.org/faq/281723
- French: http://ask.un.org/fr/faq/293393
- Spanish: http://ask.un.org/es/faq/297519
Main WHO website on COVID-19
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
WHO situation reportshttps://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
WHO coronavirus/COVID-19 global researchhttps://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/global-research-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov
In light of the proliferation of misinformation, the “myth-busters” page on the WHO website may also be helpful – many of the informative graphics can be downloaded and re-used.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters
You are welcome to any resources found on these websites and in the research guides listed above. All UN documents are in the public domain and can be freely disseminated. When re-using these resources, kindly give appropriate credit.
Archiving Scotland’s response to COVID-19
If you look at traditional media such as newspapers and magazines just now it often feels like everything is about coronavirus. The National Library of Scotland as you would expect will collect the newspapers, official publications and magazines that appear during the pandemic and when they are published the inevitable books that will chronicle this period.
Just now though we are trying to collect the websites and webpages that document the impact of COVID-19 on Scotland and how the nation has reacted. We are collecting everything from official Scottish Government advice to blogs and social media. This will become a permanent resource on COVID-19 and Scotland as well as the wider United Kingdom that will be available long after the pages we collect have disappeared from the internet.
My colleague Trevor Thomson is one of the team doing this. For the last few weeks and no doubt many weeks to come Trevor has been at home bent over a red hot laptop identifying and capturing hundreds of websites relating to the pandemic. Trevor explains what we have been doing and why below.
By early March 2020 it was apparent that the coronavirus (COVID 19) outbreak was going to affect Scottish society in substantial ways. As with many national events a great deal of material has been produced online that addresses all aspects of the pandemic – the output is vast, but the Library has been striving to collect web based material representative of the coverage and gather it together in one place in the UK Web Archive.
One of the great aspects of collecting online material, of course, is that it is available anywhere there is broadband hooked up to a PC or laptop. It is also a saving grace that the means of collecting and tagging URLs for the web archive is also available online – and access to the software is not restricted to physical presence in a particular institution or building. It is therefore a perfect job for working from home.
The first change the virus caused to our lives in Scotland was the cancellation of sports and theatre as it became clear that large public gatherings were likely to lead to the infection spreading more quickly. If you follow the arc of the collecting you will see we targeted for collection the websites of theatres and other cultural institutions as well as the governing bodies for sport as they began to react to the virus. We then targeted coverage of these cancellations in local and national newspapers and on the news pages of the BBC and STV.
As social isolation, social distancing and the lockdown were introduced the focus of the collecting changed to capture the radical effects of staying at home. Online information issued by local authorities on school closures and other matters as well as by transport providers, places of worship and the reactions and advice issued by the Scottish Government were targeted for collection. A selection of business reaction from employers and advice and support emanating from chambers of commerce was targeted for collection. Volunteers and charities have done admirable work responding to the needs of our most vulnerable citizens and their online presence often in the form of social media has been and will continue to be captured.
The greatest impact of the outbreak has been on the health service treating people who have contracted the virus. We have collected material, information and advice issued online by the NHS and social care partnerships throughout the country. Scotland also has a notable medical research response and this has been reflected in the collecting. More hidden impacts of lockdown such as the strains on families and mental health have also been targeted for collection.
As with most activities at this time it has been a communal activity across the Library. Colleagues with expertise in an area have identified websites and collated lists whilst others have input these selections into the UK Web Archive so they can be collected. By the end of 21st April 2020 2,176 individual URLs have been identified for collection based on their relevance to documenting the COVID-19 outbreak and this work of course continues.
In due course the full results of this project will be presented as a focused collection alongside broader collections on the coronavirus and its impact on the United Kingdom in the UK Web Archive which can be found at http://www.webarchive.org.uk
This post originally appeared on the National Library of Scotland Blog
Coronavirus Statutory Instruments Dashboard
Reposted from the Hansard Society
The national effort to tackle the Coronavirus health emergency has resulted in UK ministers being granted some of the broadest legislative powers ever seen in peacetime. This Dashboard highlights key facts and figures about the Statutory Instruments (SIs) being produced using these powers in the Coronavirus Act 2020 and other Acts of Parliament.
Briefings on COVID-19 from the House of Commons Library
| The House of Commons Library has some briefings and insights around Covid-19. They cover:- legislation information about welfare benefits statutory sick and NI contributions employment rights schools support for business and more. There are 35 research briefings in total through this link but it is likely there will be more in the coming days. All information has been fact-checked and the content updated when needed. |
Frequently Asked Questions on the UK’s exit from the European Union
Prepared by the Scottish Parliament this SPICe briefing 20-11 provides answers to their most frequently asked questions on the UK’s exit from the European Union as well as giving detailed information under the headings of People, Law and institutions and Looking ahead.
“Answer the Question” – School Exams in Scotland
This article, written by Fiona Laing, Official Publications Curator, National Library of Scotland, first appeared in K&IM Refer 35(3) Autumn 2019
The Scottish School Exam Papers Project has developed and grown over the last five years in ways that I could never have anticipated at the outset. The project was cited in the nominations for two awards that I received over the summer: CILIP Scotland’s Library and Information Professional of the Year, and the Government Information Group’s Life Time Achievement Award. It was also specifically mentioned in the feedback I received when gaining my CILIP Fellowship in September.
The project began as potential partnership between the Institute of Education (IoE) and the National Library of Scotland to collaborate in a funding bid to the Wellcome Trust to digitise school exam papers for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects. It ended up however, in a quite different guise four years later with the National Library independently producing a web feature that included its digitised early Scottish schools exam papers, alongside some creative interpretation of that content. It is a great example of setting out to deliver one project and ending up with something quite different but equally brilliant.
The original partnership with the IoE would have allowed researchers to see the development of the teaching of the STEM subjects over time, and with the addition of the Scottish content, comparisons could have been made between the two countries education systems. The National Library of Scotland gained the full support of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) for the project and signed a collaboration agreement with IoE in the summer of 2015. Unfortunately, the initial bid was unsuccessful and was resubmitted later that year, only to fail once more.
Having gained permission from the SQA to digitise the Scottish school exam papers, the National Library decided to proceed with the digitisation of its own content. It is still my hope that at some point in the future we will be able to combine this content with the English education exams papers from the IoE, and achieve a similar outcome to the one we had initially hoped for.
The digitised papers cover the first Leavers Certificate in 1888 (which was published as a Parliamentary Paper) up to the Scottish Certification of Education exams in 1963. In 2017, the papers were made freely available on the Library’s Digital Gallery. In 2018, the National Library decided to look at how it could improve engagement with its Digital Gallery content. A cross library group was established and given the task of producing, in 12 weeks, something more engaging with one of its digitised collections. I was delighted when the Exams site was selected for the project. Whilst the Digital Gallery pages gave the full text of the Exam papers by year and OCRing allowed full searchability, it lacked context and anything that might answer the question “why would I would be interested in looking at these?” By the addition of a short video interview with Professor Patterson of Edinburgh University and a time line of events in Scottish education, we were able to demonstrate how these papers showed the development of Scottish education during this period. For example, they highlight the increased accessibility to the exams by both sexes as well as the increased range of subjects. The exams now gave pupils an opportunity to demonstrate their abilities, especially for girls; and whilst the subjects may not have changed much, the titles have. What we now call history and geography and modern studies, the study of politics, was all part of the English exam.
Most people will have had to sit exams of one sort or another during their lifetime; however they are not often looked back on with joyful reflection. The project group explored the idea that the papers could be used as a source of inspiration rather that for the purpose of testing abilities. This took the project off in a completely different direction. The Library advertised through Creative Scotland for artists to produce creative responses to the exam papers. It awarded seven bursaries of £1,000 each. Although we had a tight deadline for applications, we were overwhelmed by the responses from across Scotland. It was very difficult to select just seven pieces. The final submissions can be viewed alongside the digital content and the contextual information. The Resits include a punk rock group, a ballet company, some beautiful art work, choral music and contemporary dance, an amazing and diverse mix.
This project demonstrates how a small but rich collection of material can be used in many different ways and by different user groups. This was certainly not what I had anticipated when I first embarked on the project with the Institute of Education five years earlier. It wasn’t all plain sailing of course. Keeping the project alive took energy and enthusiasm, but I believed that it was a worthwhile project from the start. I spoke about it to anyone who would listen, in my own organisation and beyond. The final product surpassed my expectations and the feedback that we received was hugely positive.
In 2019, the exam papers content was made available on the Library’s new Data Foundry. This presents Library collections as data in a machine-readable format, widening the scope for digital research and analysis. This will allow researchers to examine this collection in yet another way, purely as text.
In 2020, the remainder of our Scottish School Exam papers collection will be added to our Digital Gallery and Data Foundry, and I am excited to see what future developments will emerge from the use of this resource.
National Library of Scotland launches Data Foundry
As part of its Digital Scholarship service, the National Library of Scotland has launched a website for its data collections.
The new Data Foundry site presents Library collections as data in a machine-readable format, widening the scope for digital research and analysis.
Techniques like content mining and image analysis can now be carried out using the Library’s collections. It features more than 70GB of data, including digitised text and images, metadata collections, map data and organisational data.
Digitised Library collections available as data through the site include some great official publications collections with more to follow.
- A Medical History of British India
- Scottish school exam papers
- The Spiritualist
- Gazetteers of Scotland
- Encyclopaedia Britannica
Datasets from more Library material like British military lists, audiovisual collections and web archives are also planned to be published as the site is regularly update.
What’s new on the UN Digital Library
UN Digital Library
Video tutorial: https://youtu.be/vyrLA88zojM
Register for a UN Digital Library account: https://library.un.org/content/contact-us-0
A much-improved version of the Digital Library has now gone live, powered by the latest search technology and offering new user-friendly features, including:
- Searching through the full text of documents in 6 official languages is now possible.
- Search results can be filtered by document types, UN bodies, year or subject.
- Related documents are linked, making it easier to trace actions taken in UN bodies – from the draft to the adopted resolution and on to the meeting record and the voting results.
- Registered users now can set up email alerts to keep up to date with new content on specific topics or by individual UN bodies
- Users can also save and share queries or custom lists of documents.
UNRIC Info Point & Library Newsletter – July/August 2019
