Tracing books and archives from the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland: practicalities, pitfalls and possibilities (Accepted version)

The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland was founded in 1781 with a broad aim ‘to investigate both antiquities and natural and civil history in general’, and with comprehensive collecting to support this aim. This article records the experience of compiling a dataset of items which were dispersed from the historic library and archives of the Society in the twentieth century, then part of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. It highlights the impact that different approaches to recording provenance across different sectors has for both researchers and practitioners trying to identify the current and former owners of these collections. The article concludes by assessing the requirements for transforming this dataset, or comparable, datasets into a user-friendly, searchable format, irrespective of the individual items’ current holding institution.