Caring for 100,000 Books across Scotland

Now based in Edinburgh, Beth serves as the Trust’s Libraries Curator. “I’m a librarian by trade, so I basically act as the Trust’s librarian,” she explained. “There are between 70,000 to 100,000 books in the National Trust across all of its properties, and they have never really been comprehensively looked at.”

Her work combines research, travel, and conservation support. “My current task is to go around these properties and research the collections … figure out how they got there, what’s in them, how we can best care for them.” She collaborates with property staff and conservators to ensure that Scotland’s historic libraries are safe, studied, and ready to inform interpretation for visitors.

“A Cosmopolitan World Over Here in Scotland”

Having lived in Scotland for most of the past decade and a half, Beth says her adopted home still surprises her. “Sometimes you think, when you’re from a big city like Philadelphia [as I am], that that’s the center of the world … But there’s this whole cosmopolitan world over here in Scotland … people of every culture … lots of great artists … wonderful music … beautiful cities that are international in scope.”

She laughs about her extensive work-related travel: “I drive everywhere for work … I was visiting Drum Castle a couple months ago … and the woman who ran [my Airbnb] was Swedish … but her uncle actually lived in my hometown [in the US].” Those encounters, she says, remind her that “even in little rural areas, you’ll find people from all over the world.”

Shared Values across the Atlantic

Beth sees a kinship between Scottish and American attitudes toward preservation. “There’s a similar interest in preserving history and heritage … Americans are really keen on preserving what history, what built history, what cultural history there is, and I think that’s very true of Scots as well. They know that they have amazing stuff, and they really do want to preserve it.”

That shared impulse, she added, “crosses most layers of society … instead of knocking down that ruin of a castle, [people say] let’s try to get it stabilized and preserve it so that we have this piece of heritage for our future.”

What Americans Could Learn from the Scots

When asked what lesson Americans might take from Scottish culture, Beth emphasized humor and perspective. “The Scottish people kind of like laugh at themselves … They’re willing to see the humor in their culture … I think Americans could do with a little bit of self-deprecating humor sometimes and just taking a step back.”

That lightness, she said, helps people “see the long term of the path of history … sometimes things happen that aren’t great, but we can look at that and we can learn from it.”

Books as Artifacts

For Beth, the heart of her work is helping others see books differently. “If I can get people to see books as a tangible part of history, I’ll be very happy,” she said. “There are so many things that books can tell you … about the people who read them, the trade currents, the cultural phenomena that were going on throughout history, and I would like people to see them not simply as items that are read but as artifacts that exist as a physical object … each book tells its own story.” And not just the one written on the pages.

Her goal is to ensure Scotland’s libraries receive the attention they deserve within the Trust’s wider collections. “Sometimes people think Scottish culture is just like Braveheart … but there’s this huge intellectual history in Scotland.”

Beth’s work reminds us that the National Trust for Scotland’s collections aren’t just about architecture or landscapes—they’re also about words, ideas, and the people who recorded them. In her care, Scotland’s libraries are more than shelves of old leather bindings. They are stories—thousands of them—waiting to be read, preserved, and remembered.