The modern collections include much material that is relevant to the study of Scottish local and family history – whether published locally or of relevance to specific areas. Many items will also be held in local collections, which is important both in ensuring that copies don’t disappear, but also because of their geographical significance. However in the National Library they can be consulted alongside material from the wider Scottish and international context, as well as providing local information to inform the study of many subjects, such as textiles, pottery, and transport for example.

In addition to published histories and journals, there is also original locally published material such as tourist leaflets, local history pamphlets, church newsletters and local society magazines from throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. There are also extensive collections of sports programmes and club histories, as well as theatre programmes and local newspapers. All of this material can be identified by searching the catalogue at https://www.nls.uk/catalogues, but has to be consulted in the Library. There is also much local film footage held by the Moving Image Archive, which is also part of the National Library (https://digital.nls.uk/gallery/category/films). Further information on the local history collections can be found on the website https://www.nls.uk/family-history/local-history

In addition, the Library has digitised some of its collections, and these are available to use from home. Within the Digital Gallery (https://digital.nls.uk/gallery/) are many collections to help with the study of local history (See https://digital.nls.uk/gallery/category/scottish-history-and-people and family history (See https://digital.nls.uk/gallery/category/family-history). For example we have digitised the publications of the Scottish History Society, An Comunn Gàidhealach, and Scottish Post Office Directories, to name but a few. Most of the Library’s Scottish maps have also now been digitised and can be found here (https://digital.nls.uk/gallery/category/maps-and-mapping).

The library also subscribes to over a hundred online databases, most of which are available to users outwith the Library, and they can be accessed at this link https://auth.nls.uk/eresources/. They cover many areas of relevance to local studies, including original historical documents of all types, newspapers, genealogy resources and government publications