Go, Team Orkney!

A Press Release has just arrived from the council saying that Orkney Library and Archive are basically completely brilliant.

Although visits to libraries have increased slightly over the years, levels of borrowing have declined all over the country except for in Orkney.

Check out these stats, fact fans:

We had 11,000 more visitors this year than the year before, that's an 8.5% increase

31.1% of Orkney's inhabitants borrowed something from us in 2009/10 compared with 30.9% in 2008/9. This may not seem like a massive leap, but when you consider that other authority's borrowing statistics are falling, then any increase is great news.

The number if items issued has increased by 8,000 ! (That's 5%!)

The number of visitors to the archive has been increasing by 10% each year, but last year the increase was 15% !

And last, but not least, visits to the website have increased by 7,000, which is 50%!!

This increase dates from the implementation of the twitter page, the facebook page and this blog. Hoorah. Having these three extra avenues of communication with our visitors has been very useful and has allowed us to convey information and reply to queries.

I've been saving the picture below for a special occasion and, I think you'll agree that that time is now: