John Rae at Orkney Book Festival

This year is the bicentenary of John Rae's birth and many events are planned throughout the year to commemorate him and his achievements in the Arctic.

Struan Sinclair is coming over from the University of Manitoba to give a talk about John Rae and the Canadian connection.

His is a homecoming of sorts, because Struan spent a spell in Orkney as a Writing Fellow some years ago and has many folk here who remember the time they spent with him talking about their writing.

And Bryce Wilson, a weel kent son of Stromness, will be telling us about Rae's connection with the town and giving us a preview of his forthcoming book. 




John Rae's Arctic adventures are dear to the hearts of the people of Orkney. And there is a strong sense locally of the injustice done to him by polite society in London when he returned to tell the story of the fate of the Franklin expedition. Even Charles Dickens joined in the howl of outrage at the suggestion that starving Englishmen could have engaged in cannibalism in their desperation to survive.

John Rae respected and listened to the Inuit people he met and learned survival strategies from them. It was his understanding of and sympathy with these 'ignorant savages,' as they were believed to be, that earned him the hatred of the ruling elite in the capital.

But come and hear the full story from the experts.

Struan Sinclair
John Rae in Canada
11.30 am 
Saturday 13 April
Orkney Library & Archive


Bryce Wilson
Stromness and John Rae
11.00 am
Sunday 14 April
Stromness Library


There is also a fascinating exhibition about John Rae in Stromness Museum. Why not take that in too!

National Library Day

Orkney Library & Archives in Kirkwall

Responses from Orkney folk when I asked them about their libraries ...

I’ve never known a better library * they are outstanding. Kirkwall Library is a friendly, fun place with helpful, cheerful staff. The atmosphere is great & the reading groups very enjoyable.  KGS library is also excellent – provides varied opportunities for students to learn & actively encourages reading. (The librarian is largely responsible for this) * Overall a very good service. I have used the internet services and compared to other libraries it is very nice and clean. I also like the casual newspaper area at the front. It feels welcoming. * Well rounded. There is always something for everyone. Easy to find something new. * Very good. Helpful staff. Use of computers. Meetings for work. So work and leisure * Meetings in the MacGillivray Room * Good! Better now than ever before. * Very positive – although I have not had the time of recent years to use it – demands of work and family precluded that (and I have thousands of books at home). Have appreciated their short read books at airport & at hairdresser. Any dealing I have had with Orkney Library staff has been exceedingly positive. Staff have been pleasant, helpful, knowledgeable and gone out of their way to help. I intend to use the library much more now that my lifestyle has changed. * I love the Archives. It's such a wonderful resource for research, family history, creative writing. And the Photographic Archives are a treasure trove of Orkney images. * BRILLIANT – the folk are helpful and knowledgeable, funny and always welcoming. * brilliant. I use the mobile library as well as the Kirkwall one and the staff couldn’t be nicer or more helpful * Really good and very long time * very good * Excellent, helpful staff. BROWSING, serendipity are important. * Excellent.  In the Orkney Room they have everything and all the staff are helpful. * fantastic – what a brilliant facility and the engagement of the staff with the readers is tremendous. *excellent. The team is consistently helpful, courteous and innovative * Brilliant! * A1 Excellent – Friendly, helpful staff in Kirkwall where I live, and in Stromness, where I go once a fortnight for the Stromness Writing group. We are v. proud of Stewart’s computer skills!! 

Stromness Library

* Excellent. I have only used Kirkwall Library. It’s a warm, welcoming, enjoyable building to come in to. The staff are friendly and helpful. I enjoy the Facebook page too! * They are excellent.  Very friendly staff and a good selection of books. Also no finer!! * If all libraries could be like Kirkwall then things would only improve in the world of literature.* Great * good * very good. With children + by self * brilliant. Lovely staff, very helpful * excellent. They provide a wide range of books and staff are helpful and willing to order anything not available at once. * Excellent. Very friendly informative helpful staff with a good range of books to borrow. The website has a lot of very useful information too * very positive * Completely positive. They are both - Stromness & Kirkwall - my home from home. * extremely positive. Very friendly staff, great resources. Good collection + mix of novels + non-fiction. Bookbug sessions are wonderful * Excellent. The staff are so friendly & helpful. They suggest books that they think might be interesting. * Excellent. Staff are courteous and extremely helpful. * excellent * Having recently moved to Orkney and not knowing my way round the library I have nothing but praise for the staff and selection of books. * totally positive – helpful, welcoming, lively * Very helpful + innovative * All are excellent. * warm and welcoming and helpful. * Brilliant!! * Very good. Staff are extremely helpful. * grand places! * Very good, welcoming, helpful staff and family friendly. * very good! – good range of fictional and academic books - a real asset to my academic studies - staff are very genial! * very good choice and friendly staff * excellent * First class service. Excellent staff. * Excellent – great range of titles and media, very well-informed and helpful staff, enjoy book group * the best of all the ones I have been to in Scotland. V positive with helpful, friendly staff * Excellent – Orkney library and the very nice staff make it a really important place for me. * great!  a lovely booky atmosphere, the library is splendid in all sorts of other ways – PLUS GREAT STAFF!! * The Home Library Service is an excellent service. It's one of the things I rely on. I like large print. I don't choose the books myself, Steven does; he knows what I like. I'm very well looked after. * I used to go to the library regularly till my mobility deteriorated. So I was really glad to discover I could have books delivered to me. I need good books to turn to. We're very lucky in Orkney. When Steven comes with the van, it's another contact - somebody bringing news from outside. With Steven choosing books for me that I might not have thought of, this service has expanded my reading, widened it. I like something fresh. I would be lost without this service.

This is the Wordle poster of the above words: ORKNEY LIBRARIES

Whether in Kirkwall or Stromness, in the Archives, the Photographic Archives, on the road with the Mobile Library, or receiving boxes of books at home with the Home Library Service, I think it's fair to say that Orkney folk like their libraries! Long may they flourish!  

YAP & YARN

The knitted neck warmer! My first go at knitting for many a long year. It has lacy bits and a scalloped edge and involved some nifty moves with needles and yarn:one row of plain; then knit two together four times; yarn forward, knit one four times; one row of purl; another of plain ... 

This is me warming up for the new groups about to start in Kirkwall and Stromness Libraries in the New Year. My first effort is not quite flawless but I'm betting the Yap & Yarn groups will sort me out.


They start on: 

Monday 7 January
5.00 - 7.00 pm
Stromness Library

And on:

Monday 14 January
5.00 - 7.00 pm
Kirkwall Library

And will run on alternate Mondays in each library.

If you look closely at my work you will see that the holes don't quite line up and the wavy bits are as uneven as the ribbed sea sand. But it was fun to do and I'm looking forward to learning from Karen and Heather and Kaja how to put right my mistakes when the groups start. 

The groups are for anyone from complete beginners to more experienced knitters. And for people like me who knitted a little bit a long time ago, but never quite got through a whole project to produce a finished article!

Come to either group or both, bring your knitting and have a cuppa. There will be some needles and yarn there for folk who have never knitted before, but if you can bring your own, all the better.

See you there!   

Jessica & the New Library Card

I was standing by the issue desk in Kirkwall Library when I was caught by the excitement beside me. It came from Jessica Watson, pictured, who was there with her grandfather giving her details for her first library card. I asked her a bit about herself. 

I'm nine, she said, though technically I'm ten, or I will be on the first of January. I like all types of books, fiction and non-fiction. One of my favourite authors is Jacqueline Wilson. I got into her writing when I read one of her Tracy Beaker books.

I used to come here with my mum and I would read while she was using the computer. Now I can come here and borrow books!

After I'd asked for a photo of her, proudly holding up her new library card, she went off with her grandad to browse the shelves. She must have been looking for a particular title, because I heard her grandfather suggest that they look up the library catalogue on the computer to find out where the book was. A good team effort!

Her excitement reminds me of my own, the day I joined Kirkwall library. At that time it was in Laing Street. I chose my book, Russian Fairytales, full of giants and seven league boots, read it that night, took it back the next day and chose another one. 

Do any blog readers out there have memories of the library when it was in Laing Street? Or of the Stromness library, which will soon move to a new building at the pier head? We would love to hear from you if you do.

Short Stories

The display that Steven set up of short story collections is now considerably depleted. I'd love to know who is borrowing them and what they think. But short of hovering beside it all day, or setting up CCTV surveillance, I have to content myself with imagining some folk enjoying books they might not otherwise have come across.

Here is the second part of what Majella who works here had to say of her own love of short stories.

"Among the short story collections currently available for loan at the Orkney Library & Archive are: Furnace by Wayne Price and What we talk about when we talk about Anne Frank by Nathan Englander.  Both collections have received glowing reviews.  Also available is winner of the Best of National Book Awards Fiction Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor. 

"My personal favourite remains Dubliners by James Joyce.  This collection of stories portraying the everyday lives of Dublin people has the ability to launch me back to a city which I have come to know and love from many visits to my sister.  It is a city steeped in history and has long been home to writers, musicians and artists.  Just being in that great city can make you feel very much alive.

"The fifteen short stories recount the brutal realism of the lives of ordinary people as they endure the limitations of their banal existence.  Joyce's characters reflect his deep insight into the human condition.  He had the ability to take what may seem ordinary and transform it into something sublime. Joyce was adept at guiding a character to their moment of epiphany.  Despite the tragic undertone to this collection Dubliners evokes the excitement and vitality of a still vibrant city.

"I draw great pleasure from reading short stories.  Often they cover subjects that have a resonance for the reader which is very gratifying. A good short story can hold up a mirror to our own life and sometimes shed some light on it.   A remark or comment made by a character in a story can lead us to revisit our actions or words and see them from another person's perspective.

I find short stories compelling as well as entertaining because by their very structure they give the reader a quick and deep insight into another's life.  This skill is fascinating and remains for me the reason why I find the short story genre immensely satisfying."

Thank you for that, Majella. It makes me want to go back and reread The Dubliners. I'll have to wait till whoever has borrowed it brings it back!

Val & Stewart & the Stolen Library Card

Looks like a road trip! And it was. Stewart Bain of Orkney Library took Val McDermid out in the library van for a tour of the West Mainland the day she arrived. I don't know about seizing the moment, but they were certainly grabbing what light there was in the day, so that Val could see something of Orkney before her session and before she flew off the next morning.

They went out the Orphir Road, passed Scapa Flow, then across the Brig o Waithe to Stromness. There, I believe shelter - and some refreshment - was taken in the Flattie Bar. Strictly non-alcoholic!

Scapa Flow from the Orphir Road

From there they went to the Standing Stones and Ring of Brodgar. Val was suitably impressed - if not by Stewart's driving, then at least by the Orkney countryside. She had a lie down in a darkened room before her session in the evening in Kirkwall Library!

Val McDermid's Session

Val clearly has a fan base in Orkney. There was an enthusiastic and appreciative crowd there to see her and listen to her story of how she began to write. It started of course with reading, and she credits the public library system with turning her into a writer. As a child, restricted to two fiction and two non-fiction books a week, she stole her mother's library card and told the librarians that her mother was ill and couldn't get to the library. Thus she augmented her reading to include adult titles and began her career of telling lies. A short hop then to writing fiction, Val maintained.

There was a lively Q&A then after she'd talked for a while, about the sources for some of her dark stories. Her latest book, she says, began with the experience of having her replacement metal knees set off the alarm at O'Hare airport in Chicago. She was held in a perspex box until the source of the metal was verified. Her son, around seven at the time, was made to wait outside. What if ...? Val thought. What if somebody came and took my son while I was detained by Chicago's finest in a perspex box ...? This became the central plot of her new book, The Vanishing Point. All fiction starts with What if...? she says.

Stewart interviewed Val on video for the library and drew comparisons between her career and that of Kylie Minogue! Not many people would get away with that! You can watch it here. I also interviewed Val for Radio Orkney's arts programme, Tullimentan which will air on Wednesday 19 December at 6.10 pm. If you miss it, you can catch it and previous programmes on SoundCloud.

Keep up with the various, sometimes nefarious, goings on in Orkney Library by liking the Facebook Page and following it on Twitter . You can also find the wonderful Stromness Library blog published regularly. Just click the link here. And check out the Reader in Residence's Facebook and Twitter pages.