Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

October 2004 Volume 2 (5)

Research

Information on the edge

Even the post is affected by the weather in Foula and Barra. Sue Beer reveals what she has discovered about information access in remote island areas of Scotland.

Having lived in a remote part of Shetland since 1974 and having worked there as a business information provider, I have a particular interest in access to information and provision of information services in remote island areas of Scotland. I have also been involved for some years with the Shetland Islands Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), providers of general advice and information services.

My particular research interest is in gaining a greater understanding of the role of information in ameliorating the effects of peripherality and, conversely, how living in a remote area may make it more difficult to access and disseminate information.

I have interviewed over a hundred representatives of businesses, community and voluntary groups in four remote communities in each of Shetland and the Western Isles, and the information providers that serve them. The experiences of these interviewees, particularly of barriers to information flow and examples of good practice in information access and distribution, have provided me with the basis for my research. The communities I looked are: the islands of Foula and Unst and the mainland parishes of Walls and Sandness and of Northmavine in Shetland; the island of Barra and the Bays of Harris, Uig and Bernera and Ness in the Western Isles.

My findings so far have shown that islanders in both groups put a great deal of value on information that they have acquired from known sources, preferably in face-to-face contact but necessarily also by telephone. Many people will ask for information from a known individual within an organisation but, on the other hand, a desire for anonymity and a reluctance to be seen to be seeking information may mean that they seek information from outwith their own community, in particular avoiding family and close friends or the scrutiny of their neighbours. Although the telephone can save a lot of travelling, it does not necessarily give anonymity, as voices in a small community can be often be recognised, so the Shetland CAB gets the occasional enquiry from Orkney or the Western Isles.

Living in a more remote community your need for information may be greater, but the cost of travelling both in time and money within the island groups is a major barrier to information flow, and this may be underestimated even locally; for example, the distance between Sandness, in mainland Shetland, and its 'local' community development office is a 56 mile round trip; to get there by bus involves two changes and costs £8.20 return. A Western Isles interviewee from Stornoway spoke of being asked by a Glasgow colleague: "Can you pop down to Barra?" to see a client; this would have cost £180 by air, or else he could have taken two ferries each way and a couple of days for the round trip. As he said to me: "How ridiculous is that?" but, of course, his Central Belt colleague just had no idea of how ridiculous it was, as far as he was concerned it was "just down the road".

These distances could also affect people's access to IT training, especially if they have no car, so affecting their ability to access the Internet effectively.

Service provision within and to the islands is not of the same quality as the majority expect in the UK: although broadband has recently made its way into Lerwick and Stornoway, the island capitals, it has yet to be rolled out to the areas of study, and in some cases there are no plans for such provision. There is no fixed telephone link to Shetland so both voice and data telephony through the microwave link can be affected by weather; Foula's phone service involves a system of shared lines and a radio link from the Shetland mainland; users there told me how frustrated they were at the length of time it takes to get online or download an email. Mail deliveries by plane to Foula and Barra are very much weather dependent and, since Barra's airstrip is on the beach, it is also tide dependent; letters take a long time to arrive in bad weather.

Travelling to the mainland is extremely expensive and time consuming: over £300 for an economy return from Shetland to Aberdeen, or an overnight trip on the boat. Going to a meeting or training for a couple of hours in the Central Belt can take you away from your desk for three days; and people also told me they could feel lonely or intimidated in 'the big city', despite the shopping opportunities! But I did find that, for a large number of my respondents, particularly the information providers and business people, the networking opportunities that travelling to conferences, exhibitions and meetings presented were invaluable for sharing best practice with their peers; joining in on meetings through video conferencing just did not allow for the same exchange of ideas and information.

But it is certainly not all bad news. Both island groups were very international in their outlook and entrepreneurial by nature; strong personal networks and intimate knowledge of who does what within the community mean that individuals and groups can reach the 'right' person to answer their information enquiry very quickly; the long service record and continuity of staff, particularly in the Western Isles, helps facilitate the sharing of best practice; as does the preponderance of good partnership working and people within the community who 'wear many hats'. Above all, perhaps, there is a thirst for the acquisition of knowledge and information and an exchange of local information that may no longer exist in less peripheral areas.

Altogether I found that exclusion from information in these remote island areas was a combination of human, geographical and technological factors: lack of flexibility by central information service providers, the desire for anonymity, lack of understanding of the ramifications of distance and the concomitant costs in time and money, poor quality telecommunications, distances from IT training, information provided that was inappropriate or inapplicable in an island context, the meeting of personal or organisational agendas – the list goes on. However, the advantages of personal contact and knowing where to start on your information hunt can more than make up for these deficiencies.

I am very grateful for the support that I have received in my research from my supervisors, Dorothy Williams and Jane Farmer of The Robert Gordon University and The University of Aberdeen respectively, and for the financial support of The Robert Gordon University, The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, The John Campbell Trust and The Regional Studies Association.

Sue Beer is a PhD student in the Information Management Department of Aberdeen Business School, part of The Robert Gordon University. Her research topic is The relationship between access to information and the effects of peripherality (in the context of the Northern and Western Islands of Scotland).
Interim findings from her research are published in Libri, 2004, vol.54 as 'Information Flow and Peripherality in Remote Island Areas of Scotland'.

Sue is winner of Libri Best Student Paper Award 2004.

Information Scotland Vol. 2 (5) October 2004

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Last updated: 9 November 2004