Highland Archives Talk with Lorna Steele McGinn from Highlife Highland

Lorna Steele is the Community Engagement Officer for the Highland Archive Service, whose four archive centres contain historic documents, covering a third of Scotland’s landmass and dating from the 1200s to the present day. Her role involves connecting a diverse range of audiences, from school pupils to prison inmates, with these fascinating documents.

Lorna Steele-McGinn, Community Engagement Officer

I started working as an Archive Assistant at the Highland Archive Centre, Inverness, in October 2014 and was appointed Community Engagement Officer in July 2017. My work background prior to this was in retail and hospitality, but working at the Highland Archive Centre allows me to indulge my love of language and history on a daily basis, and regularly draws on knowledge I gained while doing my English Language MA (Hons) at the University of Edinburgh. I love working with historic documents, deciphering handwriting, uncovering stories and connecting people to the Highlands’ past. Outside work I enjoy reading, travelling and collecting all sorts of things! Our series of short films about the collections, Learn with Lorna, can be viewed on the High Life Highland YouTube channel.