Shetland's impressive archive collection will be open to the public in two months, for the first time in more than a year. Archive staff have spent the past few months been moving their vast collection of documents recording the past 500 years of island life into the new Shetland Museum and Archives building.
Work is going so well that staff have said they can invite people in to make the most of this popular facility as early as November, six months ahead of the rest of the museum complex, at Lerwick's Hay's Dock.
Visitors will need to make an appointment and enter through the building's back door until spring, when the entire museum opens with its 3,000 artefacts in place. Builders are still working on the interior, but are expected to have completed their work by the end of this year.
The new archives will enjoy three times the space of their cramped quarters off Lerwick's King Harald Street, as well as state of the art storage and preservation features which outmatch most similar facilities in Scotland.
You can read more about this opening in The Shetland News.
