Website for Unst bus shelter is ‘essential reading for future generations’

A website for the celebrated Unst bus shelter is rubbing shoulders with big-hitters including Facebook and eBay.

The British Library has included the shelter’s homepage as one of the 100 websites which will be “essential reading for future generations researching our life and times in 2013”.

The bus shelter has developed a rich recent history, having won a best shelter in Britain award and been named community website of the year by Yahoo! in 2003. Thousands of names are recorded in the visitors book each year.

After a previous shelter on the corner of the main road past Baltasound was removed, seven-year-old Bobby Macaulay wrote to this newspaper in 1996 urging the council to replace it. The shelter is used by children waiting for the school bus.

Once a replacement was put in place, a wicker sofa and table mysteriously appeared in it. Other additions, including a small television, heater and carpet soon followed and it quickly became a tourist attraction.

A traffic island next to the shelter is named after legendary DJ and broadcaster John Peel.

As of this weekend, UK libraries will have the power to archive web domains in the same way they have collected print material for centuries.

Several other Scottish web pages feature in the list. They include that of Argyll schoolgirl Martha Payne, whose blog documenting school dinners attracted a media storm last year; the Blipfoto community site which was started in Edinburgh, and The Beano comic’s online presence.