We're All Goin' On An Archives Holiday!

It is getting to that time of year when we get slightly busier and the customers start to get a lot less local.

It is lovely to get visitors but it sometimes seems a shame that people have to travel so far to do their research. (Many travel from Australia and Canada each year.)

So we are leaving. We shall hire a big bus, Cliff Richard style and take a road trip South. We shall affix an enormous speaker to the roof which shall blast our theme tune  as we go and we'll just take the archives on the road okay? I'll just let the others in on my brilliant new outreach plans....

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I just ran this idea past Dusty who fell into a deep swoon after shrieking " the archives away from their strongrooms... NEVER!" and had to be revived with old treasure hunt chocolates and meths from the cleaning cupboard.

The Fonds just assumed I was joking and clipped me on the ear with a commonty of Rendall.

VOC has locked himself into the darkroom with the Tom Kent negatives.

So the plan's off.

"Thanks for nothing guys!" I hear you shout; "what if we can't visit? What then huh? HUH?"

Then simply get in touch dear readers: we conduct much of our research by phone, letter and email.
Contact details are here.
Or keep reading our blog posts.

We Fear Our Hearts Shall Never 'Beat Again.'

Keen fans of the Orkney Archive shall know that we are closed to the public on a Wednesday. This is so that we can tend to our children (hem, I mean... the archives) by cataloguing, packaging and lovingly stroking them all day long.

We have always been glad of this time to organise our teetering piles of uncatalogued material but never more so than today.

Today the archive staff are all wearing black armbands and tear stained veils after receiving the devastating news that JLS are to split.

There is no way we could face the public today. Sniff. Sniff sniff... Sniff.

There shall be no cataloguing today, merely lying in nests of packaging material whilst weeping and gently singing 'One Shot' to each other.

Mystery Object Update

It's for this:

Mystery Object Time

We have been spring cleaning here at the Orkney Archives and frankly, everything still looks the same and will look the same for ever and ever and ever. We have a lot of stuff.

We have found some cool things though, created about 2mm of shelf space and freed a staff member whom we all thought had retired but had in fact just gotten stuck under an enormous pile of uncatalogued maps and plans. (Sorry for that Hester.)

Whaddya think this is for hmmmmmmmm?

LOOK. It Is An Orcadian Newspaper CAKE.

Little did we know when this customer first enquired about copies from a 1953 Orcadian that a newspaper CAKE was planned.

A cake that you can read. I mean, honestly, does it get any better than that?

This is an Exception to the Rule...

You know how we feel about people writing on our books readers. You know.

But.... Look at these! They're lovely little illustrations pencilled into our copy of Voices From The Light House, a poetry collection by James Morrison,

No, not that one.

No.





Our James Morrison (we think) appears as an assistant light house keeper on Walls, aged 28 in the 1881 census. He was born in Bemera, Invernesshire.


We like to rename this one 'archi' and pretend that it's about us, :

Voices from the Light House, a book of poems by James Morrison, Orkney Room reference: 800 Y MOR

Great Tait #2

Not long until the Orkney Book Festival begins on April 14th. There are two evenings of films and talks devoted to Margaret Tait and we have put together a small exhibition from our collection of Tait's papers in the archive searchroom.

Come and have a look at scripts, photographs, letters and notebooks which show how valued Margaret Tait's work was both within and outside of Orkney.