Archives

There are three collections attached to this Library. One is held in the Sir Duncan Rice Library at University of Aberdeen, King’s College Old Aberdeen. The second is at Aberdeen City Archives at Old Aberdeen House. The archives at Mastrick act as a clearing ground for all deposits prior to placing with the outside nominated depositaries. According to Provincial agreement, Shire, Churches, Cathedral and Diocese are held at Special Collections at King’s College whereas city churches are stored at Old Aberdeen House. At Mastrick is kept an archive of diocesan committee papers and biographical details of clergy who have served in the diocese or had connections with it. The Mastrick facility also tackles conservation and cataloguing of this large collection which increases week by week.

The Mastrick Collection has some 4,000 volumes on the shelves mainly germane to the canon of our research and the archives run into many thousands of documents, some of which have been digitally scanned. The Diocesan Library Collection at Aberdeen University Library consists of over 10,000 volumes, kept under ideal conditions of humidity and temperature and has a catalogue which ranges from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century

The Mastrick establishment is run entirely by volunteers under the direction of the Honorary Archivist who acts as Keeper of the Diocesan Library.

Gifts and Donations

The Collections will be very grateful for the gift of muniments and books complimentary to the religious genre of the collections.  We have already received many donations both in books and in documents.  We are interested in anything related to the Episcopal Church in Scotland and will come and collect [throughout the UK], catalogue on your premises/scan on your premises if you wish to retain the original, and arrange for its deposit in an appropriate classification of the archives.

In the first instance, contact should be made with Stuart Donald, our Honorary Archivist and Keeper of the Diocesan Library:

All gifts and donations will be personally acknowledged.