Orkneyjar is a privately-run, non-profit website, created and maintained by Sigurd Towrie.

It is not afflialiated in any way to official Orkney bodies, such as the Orkney Tourist Board or Orkney Islands Council.

The Orkneyjar website began in 1997, initially as an experiment in HTML and to provide a platform to "publish" the numerous articles on Orcadian history and heritage I had written over the years.

From its humble beginnings, the site has grown steadily and now attracts thousands of visitors each month.

Hopefully Orkneyjar will continue to grow over the years, as I find the time to re-evaluate existing material and add more content.

The website is generally updated at least one a month, but again this is dependent on time.

• The Orkneyjar website is hosted by local web-hosting company Viking New Media.. Without the generous help of David Griffith over the years, there is no doubt that hosting costs would have driven this site offline years ago.