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Lord Provost launches Aberdeen City Libraries online digital archive

Aberdeen Lord Provost Peter Stephen will launch the city’s new online home for thousands of historic photographs and records at the Central Library tomorrow [Sat, 10 Sept].

The ‘Silver City Vault’ makes the Aberdeen Local Studies archive available free to remote users for the very first time.

Online visitors can do everything from tracing an Aberdeen ancestor to glimpsing Victorian life through old photographs, many of which were captured in stunning detail by renowned photographer George Washington Wilson.

The resource contains over a thousand images of the city – including long-vanished buildings, the construction of famous landmarks, businesses which have come and gone, trams on Union Street, and horse-drawn carriages waiting at the Castlegate to take passengers down to the beach. The collection also features hundreds of images of people, landmarks and special events, such as royal visits to the city.

In addition, the website contains over 40,000 index records for events like marriage notices and newspaper obituaries and more than 10,000 articles from local journals covering individuals, organisations and events. And family historians can now search for their Aberdeen ancestors among the 30,000 personal names in the Local Studies Combined Index, with entries ranging from obituaries and notices of marriage in the Aberdeen Journal to lists of ‘paupers’ in the parishes of the city, chiefly drawn from the Victorian period.

Education, Culture and Sport convener Councillor John West said: “The Silver City Vault is a treasure trove of archive material which will fascinate every Aberdonian and anyone who has a connection with the city. The archive is a remarkable educational resource and a real pleasure to browse through. I am sure visitors to the website will spend many hours studying the thousands of images and records of the city’s history.”

The collections on the Silver City Vault represent just the tip of the iceberg, with the Local Studies team planning to continually add more content to make the Vault the best possible place to browse, search and study Aberdeen in days gone by.

In addition to the historic photographs and index records, the website will also host special collections detailing specific aspects of Aberdeen’s history. In time, the Learning Resources collection will grow into a hub for all aspects of Aberdeen history, with content being created by the wider community for the benefit of all. As the website develops, partnerships from schools, colleges and community groups will all contribute to the content and the success of the resource.

The Silver City Vault, which has been created with the help of funding from the Scottish Government’s Scottish Library and Information Council, is available at www.silvercityvault.org.uk.

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