Late Night Opening

Guess what? We asked and asked and asked and FINALLY we have been allowed to stay up late.

From Thursday 28th January 2016 the Archive (and Library) will be staying open until 9 o'clock! At night! That allows for 4 hours of research time - after 5pm! Before you begin your celebratory dance, please note this is a trial change for 6 months on 1 day per month, i.e. the last Thursday of the month.

Ok, you now have permission to sharpen your pencils, pack your satchel and dance like you just don't care...

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.

Toodle Pip

The Orkney Library & Archive

will be closed from

3pm on Friday 24 December 2010

 

We open again on

Wednesday 5 January 2011

9.15am – 7pm

Best wishes for the festive season from all the staff

Images taken from archive reference D30/2/10

It's Showtime.

We do not close for many Public Holidays here at Orkney Archive. There is May Day, Easter Monday and... Dounby Show Day.

Dounby show day is always the Thursday before the County Show and the library is always closed. This is because the library and archive staff all insist upon attending this event. Tomorrow, we shall all clamber into one of the mobile libraries, cagoules donned, cameras charged and a ten pound note each which our mums put in our wallets.

We always sing this on the journey through:



Once there, we sit patiently by the gates for three hours until they are opened and then the fun begins. Food is munched, orange squash is quaffed, livestock is inspected and penalty shoot outs are participated in.

We are often quite tired and cross by the end of the day and tempers sometimes fray on the way home but our managers usually manage to solve this with a rousing sing song and badges for good behaviour.

So don't come to the library tomorrow, 'cause we won't be there.

We Are Closed

We are closed tommorrow for the May Day holiday. The Orkney Library and Archive have planned a group outing to Jungle World in the Pickaquoy centre. See you in the ball pit!

You can NOT be serious!!!!!!!

Do not be like poor John McEnroe who, although it is his birthday today, is still FURIOUS that his planned trip to research the history of the clootie dumpling coincides with the Archives closure week.

Don't make the same mistake! If there is any pressing research to be done, make sure that you get in before the 22nd of February as we are closed to the public that whole week. Normal services will resume on the 1st of March and library services will be unaffected by the closure week.

Archives closure week

The Orkney Archive will be closed to the public the week of the 22nd - 27th of February 2010. This closure will not affect any of the library facilities.

We try to have a closure period every February so that we can drink tea, play winky murders and sardines in the strong-rooms, make prank calls and generally have a laugh.

Only joking. Because the majority of our working day throughout the year is spent front of house, there are many behind-the-scenes jobs that get neglected. The closure week is a good opportunity to accomplish tasks that need more than two people working on them at the same time, or that have acquired some urgency.

Last year we completely rearranged our Orkney Room, catalogued an entire collection, made great headway with another enormous collection and brought some semblance of order to our Aladdin's Cave of uncatalogued deposits. This year we hope to broker a peace deal in the Middle East, work out who killed Archie in Eastenders and invent a recipe for instant tea granules that doesn't taste rank.

Festive Opening Hours

Saturday Working

At this time in the morning, the Archive windows are full of sunshine and the floor and walls are covered in squares and rectangles of golden light. Our many plants cast leafy shadows across the room in a most attractive manner. This almost makes it worth being in work on a Saturday.

Yes, Orkney Archive is open 9.15am until 5pm on a Saturday and we do a late night opening until 7pm on a Thursday. Aren't we good?