The success of the National Library of Scotland in using 21st century technology to bring 19th century stories to life was recognised as the John Murray Archive exhibition won a major UK award for lighting.

Winning in the Public Buildings category the NLS was the only Scottish organisation short listed in any category at last week’s Lighting Design Awards.

Designed by Glasgow-based designer Nich Smith, the sophisticated lighting in the exhibition responds to visitors, illuminating display cases as they approach, and spotlighting specific items as they are selected.

Described by judges as ‘an exemplary use of controls‘, this facility does more than simply adding to the atmosphere and the interactivity of the exhibition: it also adds to its longevity as original manuscript documents are only illuminated when people are actually reading them, thus reducing any potential damage done by prolonged exposure to light.

Commenting on the display, the Lighting Design Awards judges said: "Nich Smith’s interactive and carefully controlled lighting scheme played a pivotal role in evoking atmosphere and drama in an exhibition of manuscripts and private letters." Also shortlisted for the award were Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art, V&A, London and White Cube, Mason’s Yard, London.

Designer Nich Smith said: "The opportunity to light such a varied and important collection as the John Murray Archive was a pleasure, and the enthusiasm for the archive passed to me from the NLS staff involved. It is not often you get to light such a varied array of artefacts as a note on dinner parties from the original "domestic goddess" Maria Rundell, a manuscript from Byron, and a Galapagos tortoise! Winning the award is a great compliment to the ambitious, evocative, and above all enjoyable exhibition that the National Library of Scotland has created.”

NLS director of Collections Development Cate Newton said: “Not only does the lighting in the exhibition look fantastic, it also does a very clever job in both bringing the collections to life and also in protecting them as much as possible. Accordingly, we are thrilled with this award and we are particularly pleased for Nich, who did an excellent job and thoroughly deserves the recognition.”

The exhibition lighting has many interactive elements, with cutting-edge technologies and a unique purpose built "light trail". At the heart of the light trail is a "digital festoon" of over 400 individually controllable light fittings, programmed to react to stages of the Publishing Machine interactive game [where visitors are invited to follow the steps of the publishing process to produce their own bestseller] as it is played.

Each of the 11 display cases in the exhibition has its own mini-lighting rig of lights which target specific exhibits and are operated by the visitor as they select individual items on the touch screen panel. Programming the exhibition control system took over a week, including one final 15 hour marathon session.

The John Murray Archive exhibition is open to the public from 10am to 8pm Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm on Saturdays and from 2pm to 5pm on Saturdays.

About the John Murray Archive

• The John Murray Archive is a treasure trove of 150,000 items by some of the greatest writers, politicians, explorers and scientists of the late 18th to the early 20th centuries.
• The Archive includes the personal and business papers and correspondence of the Murray publishing family and includes literature, exploration, politics, scientific and engineering discovery.
• Authors include Lord Byron, David Livingstone, Charles Darwin, Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Walter Scott, James Hogg, Sir John Kirk, and Herman Melville to name a few. JMW Turner and David Roberts provided illustrations for Murray books.
• The firm of John Murray was one of the greatest and perhaps the most influential of all British publishing houses, with an unrivalled list of authors.

About the National Library of Scotland

• The National Library of Scotland is a major European research library and is the world’s leading centre for the study of Scotland and the Scots - an information treasure trove for Scotland’s knowledge, history and culture.
• The Library’s collections are of world-class importance. Key areas include rare books, manuscripts, maps, music, official publications, business information, science and technology, and the modern and foreign collections.
• The Library holds well over 13 million items, including printed items, approximately 100,000 manuscripts and nearly 2 million maps. Every week it collects approximately 6,000 new items via Legal Deposit.
• NLS holds many of Scotland’s literary treasures including the last letter of Mary Queen of Scots, written six hours before her execution; the Order for the Massacre of Glencoe 1692; the world’s greatest collections of Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Carlyle manuscripts; works of Robert Burns; Robert Louis Stevenson papers; a Gutenberg bible (1455); the Murthly Hours (late 13th C); and modern collections of Scottish writers.
• See www.nls.uk for further information about the Library and its collections, and for information on events being held at the Library please see National Library Events

More on the Lighting Design Awards can be found here: Lighting Design Awards, with more about the Public Buildings category here: Lighting Design Awards Winner Public Buildings

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