DSA 2025 - Linda Ramsay for Distinguished Service in Archive Conservation
This year the ARA Board were pleased to award the maximum of three Distinguished Service Awards.
These awards
The winners:
Sam Bartle for Distinguished Service In Digital Archives
Shirley Jones for Distinguished Service in Archive Conservation
Linda Ramsay for Distinguished Service in Archive Conservation
Linda Ramsay for Distinguished Service in Archive Conservation - Nomination:
When I was working at West Yorkshire Archives Service, in the early 1990s, I heard that the National Records of Scotland had recruited a new Head of Conservation who would help advise on the building of a new record repository, to be as efficiently climate controlled as possible, and with conservation facilities. The person they chose was Linda Ramsay, and she has served in that post ever since. She loves Scotland's history as much as she loves the country itself. She is a dedicated professional, with a keen interest in training and development in her speciality. Through an internship programme for conservators, she enabled the NRS to take advantage of expertise an perspectives from outside the U.K. Her team-member and friend Hazel de Vere sent me a list of her accomplishments: As well as being an instructor on the ARA training scheme, she is an assessor for ICON accreditation; currently a trustee for the June Baker Trust, awarding grants for training in conservation; Chair of the Preservation committee Scottish Council on Archives (SCA), and a lead in producing the recent 'Salvaging Library and Archive Collections'; currently sitting on a group reviewing British Standards relating to archive storage chaired by Chris Woods, and s leading member of the professional committee reviewing British Standards BS 4971:2002, Repair and allied processes for the conservation of documents. She is a corresponding member to PAS 198 standard, a key contributor to Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) Grant Award collaboration with Glasgow University and National Library of Scotland Looking at Scottish Medieval Cartularies, a key member of the Heads of National Organisations Conservation Group, and a member of the group devising mould guidance published on the TNA website, followed by the training day ‘Spores for Thought – Mitigating and Managing Mould’ this past week.
Some time after first hearing of her, I met her, when I served on the Conservation Training Development Committee. Each meeting, I found more reasons to respect Linda Ramsay, who chaired the CTDC. From her I learned how to chair a committee; her management of time, agendas, and personalities enabled me to chair the P&CG some years later. When I retired, we moved to Edinburgh, my husband's home city, and I got to know her better. I found her a straight-talking Scot with a passion for her profession, rigorous standards, and an eye for detail. Professional concerns always came first, and a social occasion would be set aside if a mould outbreak showed up on Friday afternoon.
Nominated by: Deborah Rohan, retired Conservato