The Neil Davidson Library

Constitutional objectives

4 Purposes Neil Davidson (1957-2020) was a significant and internationally-recognised Scottish socialist historian, activist and educator. The organisation’s overarching aim to sustain the wide benefit and accessibility of his knowledge and resources for the public and to diffuse ideas and understanding. The organisation’s purposes are: a) To advance education by housing and maintaining an academic library of Neil Davidson’s library and archive of some 9,000 items including much unique and valuable material relating to Scottish history, and to labour, socialist and community movements. This activity will advance the public benefit of education by making the library available as an educational and community resource, for academics and students, researchers, community groups and the wider public to enable collective and individual self-learning. b) To advance heritage and culture, in particular that of Scotland, by maintaining and making available the library and archive of one of the country’s most significant and internationally recognised historians. By collecting, cataloguing, and making available the wealth of both primary and secondary sources on Scottish history in the library, the charity will advance the public benefit by enabling future researchers to produce new knowledge and analysis of Scotland’s heritage and culture using these resources. c) To advance education and research by providing a location and resources for the recipient of the annual Neil Davidson Fellowship awarded by Glasgow University.