National Library of Scotland's historic newspaper archive must be saved for posterity – Susan Dalgety

When I moved home recently, my collection of newspapers came with me.

The National Library of Scotland has warned its biggest newspaper archive could be lost forever without urgent repairs (Picture: National Library of Scotland/SWNS)

I used to have many more than the small bundle that is now stored carefully in boxes under my bed, but even I had to admit that I didn’t really need to keep a copy of every national newspaper from the day of Princess Diana’s tragic death.

I have newspapers from May 1997 that herald Labour’s historic win. A Scotsman from September 12, 1999, after Scotland voted Yes, Yes to a Scottish Parliament, and several American papers chronicling Barack Obama’s historic victory on November 4, 2008. And a couple that mark the death of David Bowie on January 10, 2016, two days after his 69th birthday.

I have always loved newspapers. As a rather precocious child, I read my father’s tabloid from cover to cover on my return from school each day. I was privileged to edit Scotland’s foremost community newspaper, the Wester Hailes Sentinel, for nearly a decade before joining this newspaper as a writer, and it is an absolute honour to continue to write for it today.

So I was saddened to see that Scotland’s national newspaper archive, looked after by the National Library of Scotland, is under threat. Newspapers are fragile items and need very careful care if they are to survive. They are also, I would argue, our most important historical records, recording for posterity every aspect of life, from the latest political scandal to our births, deaths and marriages.

The National Library has set up an appeal to raise enough money to carry out urgent repairs to their most fragile newspapers, so they can be digitised and saved forever. I don’t know how much the library needs for this vital work, but can I suggest that Angus Robertson, the man in charge of Scotland’s cultural policy and our national records, as well as his party’s plans for a second referendum, dips into his considerable independence budget – £20 million at the last count – and pays for the work?

After all, there isn’t going to be another indy poll any time soon, so he might as well spend some of the cash he had set aside for it to preserve the history of the first one.