Outreach and engagement

Our staff work with groups both inside and outside the University on a range of engagement events and projects. We can also offer tours and in-person visits to small groups, which include a look 'behind the scenes' into a collection store and displays of items from the archive.

Our staff work with groups both inside and outside the University on a range of engagement events and projects. We can also offer tours and in-person visits and we can also arrange talks, either in the University’s Main Library or in local community spaces.

Here are just a few examples of our work with community groups.


Understanding Oor Mad History

Working collaboratively with CAPS Independent Advocacy, we co-delivered the Understanding Oor Mad History course, a four-week community Mad Studies programme. Participants were able to explore their lived experience of mental health through the lens of our archival collections.

Check CAPS Independent Advocacy's website.

Learn more about Understanding Oor Mad History.

 

Discovery Sessions

What is a Discovery Session? 

Working with our colleagues in Outwith, we use Discovery Sessions to explore how archive collections can democratise the process of research. Community members and researchers come together to produce a one-off mini exhibition after spending time selecting material with the support of the archive team. The final Discovery Session is open to a wider public audience, allowing participants to showcase their selected materials, to share ideas and stories, and to think about new ways of approaching research.

Read more about Outwith: Participatory Research and the Library.

CAPS Independent Advocacy Discovery Session

This event brought together participants from CAPS collective advocacy groups to explore the mental health-related collections held by LHSA. Members of CAPS brought their lived expertise to draw out the important messaging and stories that can be found within our collections. The participants co-curated the event and showcased specially selected archive materials, inviting the attendees to engage with them to think about the new perspectives that lived expertise can add to research, policy, and advocacy.

LGBT History Month Discovery Session

In this Discovery Session, we explored LHSA’s LGBTQ collections with Sisters from the Order of Perpetual Indulgence, researchers from across the University, and LHSA Archivist, Louise Williams. The co-curators selected items that they felt had significance for their own expertise, shared the decisions for their choices and even held an impromptu poetry workshop using ads from a national LGBT magazine, 'Gay Scotland'.

The Sisters of the Order of Perpetual Indulgence website.

LGBTQ+ Health, Wellbeing and the Switchboard Archives Discovery Session (Online)

In this online discovery session, coordinated with the support of the UKRI Future Leaders Fellows Project, we explored the Lothian Gay and Lesbian Switchboard collection. Dr Anne Hanley, University of Birmingham, and Dr Hazel Marzetti, University of Edinburgh, along with Louise Neilson, LHSA Access Officer, provided a glimpse into the richness of the Switchboard collections with their perspectives on sexual and reproductive health, mental health, self-harm, and suicide within the LGBTQ+ community.

Lothian Gay and Lesbian Switchboard (GD61) collection catalogue.

We are always happy to discuss our work, collections and the amazing history of the hospitals, staff and healthcare of our region. Please contact us if you would like someone to speak at your event: lhsa@ed.ac.uk

Below are some examples of talks we have given:

  • Tracing family history through health
  • Mapping medicine in Edinburgh
  • Mental health in Victorian Edinburgh
  • History of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital
  • Behind the store doors: LHSA for researchers
  • Asylum records for genealogy

We have been posting regularly to our blog since 2010. Use the search function or just browse our posts to find out more about our rich history and fantastic collections. Discover the amazing people who have worked in healthcare in the region and hear from LHSA staff, interns and volunteers, past and present.


In 2020, LHSA celebrated its 40th anniversary.

Lothian Health Services Archive, the largest health archive in the UK as established in 1980 by the Lothian Health Board and the University of Edinburgh. At a time when we have never been more conscious of global health, this online exhibition showcases a collection that captures the history of medicine and healthcare in the Lothian region from 1594 to the present day.
Join some of our staff, past and present, as they choose some of their favourite items.


Running from 1 September 2025 - 31 January 2026, this exhibition forms part of Phenomenal Bodies: Exploring Disability in Scottish Academic Collections, a project coordinated by the University of St Andrews. The project features a series of linked exhibitions curated by several academic institutions across Scotland, designed with accessibility in mind and shaped by individuals and communities with lived experience of the themes that they explore. Phenomenal Bodies aims to start open and inclusive conversations about the history and representation of disability and is complemented by an online exhibition hosted by the University of St Andrews: Phenomenal Bodies website

The display features items from the LHSA collections and from the Anatomical Museum, focussing on the themes of vision and prosthetics. To make the display more accessible for blind and partially sighted visitors, Heritage Collections staff developed an audio described tour, with support from the charity Vocaleyes. There are detailed descriptions of all 12 objects in the display and these can be accessed via the embedded MediaHopper links in the Phenomenal Bodies webpage.


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