Shetland archivist receives recognition award

Shetland archivist Brian Smith has been given special recognition at a national awards ceremony.

Mr Smith has been handed the distinguished service award at a ceremony hosted by the Archives and Records Association in Chester.

The award recognises individual conservators, archivists or record managers for career-long achievement and outstanding work.

Mr Smith was the first archivist ever appointed to Shetland Islands Council when he took on the role in 1976.

At that time, he worked on his own from what had previously been a single bedroom in St Olaf Street. Since then he has busily gathered and collected while developing the service.

As he grew the collection it twice moved to larger premises, and now operates from the purpose-built set of rooms at the Shetland Museum.

There are also now colleagues to help with the work.

As well as bringing the archive together, Mr Smith also has a detailed knowledge of Shetland documents and printed works, and is a prolific author.

Many books specifically thank him for support and advice he has provided during research.

ARA chairman Andrew Nicoll said: “The ARA excellence awards are a wonderful opportunity to celebrate what is best about the record keeping sector, and to encourage us all to strive for excellence.

“It is great to be able to make awards to people at the start of their careers and to those who have been working in the sector for five decades, demonstrating that what we are doing today, now, is where the good practice and excellence begin.

“In the case of those receiving the distinguished service award, for some of them the award is made because they have repeated that good practice, that excellence, that going-beyond throughout a long career within a single place.

Mr Smith told The Shetland Times that he still “very much enjoys working with the raw material for Shetland’s history, and making it available to researchers on all periods of the islands past”.