Between 2001 and 2006 the Scottish Archive Network (SCAN) and the National Archives of Scotland (NAS) operated a discussion forum in which users could raise issues about SCAN's websites, post queries on research topics and engage in discussions about historical records in Scotland.

The Forum has had to be discontinued for various reasons.

Firstly, there were technical performance problems with the Forum software.

Secondly, very few of the postings resulted in an active discussion and most were very specific genealogical enquiries which were better handled by an appropriate archive in Scotland.

Thirdly there were inappropriate postings.

The drain on staff time in monitoring the Forum was preventing the NAS Online Resources Team in preparing content for the websites and carrying out work towards the digitisation of records and preparing metadata to allow the digital images to be made online.

When the SCAN website is redesigned in the near future, some of the content from the Forum relating to general aspects of Scottish historical records will be used to augment the Knowledge Base and other parts of the website.

There are several active discussion forums concerning Scottish history and genealogy, including the Talking Scot website at: http://www.talkingscot.com.