Orkney Library Profile picture
Aug 28, 2018 8 tweets 3 min read Read on X
In one of our archive strong rooms there is a shelf. The shelf does not contain the most exciting or interesting item in the archive but it does contain something amazing.

A thread.
On the shelf there is a number of sturdy boxes and in one of the boxes there are a number of folders.
The folders are tied closed with cotton archival tape and inside one of the folders is an envelope containing a disposition written on a piece of vellum.
A disposition is a legal document concerning the transfer of land from one person to another. Not that exciting.

But this disposition is amazing because it was written in 1402.

That is 616 years ago. Written by someone who lived in #Orkney six centuries ago.
That means it was written towards the end of the Middle Ages. Written during the Renaissance. Written during the Hundred Years War when Henry IV was King of England and Robert III was King of Scots.
It was written 90 years before Columbus sailed to the Americas. 162 years before the birth of Shakespeare. 264 years before the Great Fire of London. 413 years before the Battle of Waterloo.
For something written today to become the same age as this is now would take until the year 2634.
Try to imagine life in 2634. This is why archives, museums and libraries are amazing.

End.

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Apr 6, 2022
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Nov 13, 2021
Today is #RLSDay which marks the birthday of Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson. One of his most famous books is The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde which is a dark tale...what?

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

No, JEKYLL.

Of course that's how you say it. How do YOU say it?
The surname Jekyll is originally of Cornish origin and was traditionally pronounced 'Jeekul' so that it rhymes with treacle. Stevenson named the character of Henry Jekyll after his childhood friend Walter Jekyll, who was brother of the writer and landscape artist Gertrude Jekyll.
The Jekyll family name was pronounced 'Jeekul.'

So if you met Robert Louis Stevenson in January 1886 and asked him what his new book was called he definitely would have said 'The Strange Case of Dr Jeekul and Mr Hyde.'

So why did it change?
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Nov 18, 2020
Today is #MobileLibrariesDay which is an annual celebration of Mobile Library services across Scotland. We thought this was a good day to take a quick look back at the Mobile Library in #Orkney which has been in operation since 1963. #BookWeekScotland #MobileLibrariesDay2020
The Mobile Library service was a success right from the start. On the very first trip around the mainland of Orkney the Mobile Library visited over six hundred homes plus seven village stops over a period of seven weeks. In the first two years it issued almost 124,000 books.
Over the last six decades we've had a number of Mobile Library vehicles. At first the service could only reach readers on the mainland of #Orkney, but after the introduction of roll on/roll off ferries in 1990, the service was gradually extended to the islands.
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Mar 7, 2020
We read that it was possible to use a 3D Printer to make a lithophane from a photograph. A lithophane is an etched image that appears 3D when back lit and traditionally they were made by etching a design onto very thin porcelain. We wanted to make one using PLA plastic filament.
So we used this photo of St Magnus Cathedral in #Orkney and ran it through some software to create a .stl file that could be sent to the 3D Printer.
It came out looking like this. Not bad but a bit rough looking. It looked as though it had missed a lot of the detail. Of course it was only a first attempt but we were a little bit disappointed...
Read 4 tweets
Nov 8, 2018
Every day in our Photographic Archives the staff are working with old photographs, making prints and copies from old negatives. But yesterday they printed something amazing.
This is a print of Dr William Balfour Baikie who was born in Kirkwall in 1825. He was a naval surgeon and explorer and this photograph was taken just before he left for his first expedition to West Africa to explore the River Niger.
The photographer is unknown but the print was made from an ambrotype which was an early type of photograph produced on a glass plate. A negative image was created that becomes positive when laid on a black background. This portrait was taken in 1854.

That's 164 years ago.
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Sep 3, 2018
So over the last few months kids keep coming into the library asking if we have any books about this thing FORTNITE. We don't and I'd never heard of it so I tried asking what it was.
Is it a film? No. A cartoon? No. An game, like Pokemon or something? Yeah kinda. Nobody could tell me what all the fuss was about.

Then today a man came in to borrow some Lee Child books and he had his son with him. It said #Fortnite on his T-shirt.
While his Dad looked through our Lee Child books (he was a huge fan so he was re-reading the series) I asked the boy to explain Fortnite to me.

And he did. He told me all about it. He taught me what nobody else had been able to teach me. And now I know two things.
Read 5 tweets

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