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4 July, 2009
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By Stuart Taylor
Published: 15 December, 2007
A NEW archive centre for Lochaber will be formally opened early in the new year, Highland Council said this week.
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Two new members of staff started work earlier this week at the centre located in Lochaber College in Fort William. Zoe Watson, Lochaber archivist, and Geoff Martin, assistant archivist, along with Highland Council archivist Susan Beckley are in the process of transferring the archive collections from Inverness to Fort William. And, while the formal opening of the centre will not take place until after the Christmas break, members of the public in Fort William will be able to call into the facility and meet the staff on an informal basis from next Tuesday, December 18. When the centre officially opens – on a date to be confirmed – it will be operate on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 10am-5pm. The centre, to be operated by Highland Council, will allow important national and international archives to be returned to the area and will also mean vital personal collections will be saved for future generations. The imminent opening follows a long campaign for a local centre by councillors, community activists and historians. Three rooms at the college have been made available next to the registry office. One room will be used as a public search room; a second for staff use, and a third, larger room is now fitted as an archive repository. The Lochaber centre will form a key part of the local authority's archive strategy which is based on a "hubs and spokes" model – the hub being Inverness linked to centres throughout the Highland Council area. Highland historian Iain Thornber, from Lochaline, has been working on and promoting an archive for Lochaber for two decades. He believes the centre will provide a springboard for more research into the history of Lochaber, the West Highlands and the islands, potentially bringing in hundreds of thousands of pounds to the local economy by providing an important tourist attraction. He says the centre will cut out the need to drive to Inverness, Glasgow and Edinburgh to carry out research. The National Archives of Scotland has already committed to transferring the records of the Lochaber Presbytery. Amongst material being switched by Highland Council from Inverness to Lochaber are microfilmed census returns from 1841-1901 and old parish records for the Lochaber area up to the year 1855. s.taylor@lochaber-news.co.uk 
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