Focus on Business: Coworking in harmony

Bringing businesses big and small together, The Old Library offers a coworking space in the heart of Kirkwall, tailored to your needs. 

The stylish and comfortable space sits within the town’s historic former library, which is also home to accountancy firm, CRC.

For founder, Calvin Cooper, a desire to expand his own business and support others to flourish at the same time inspired the development. 

“For CRC, we wanted to grow, but we didn’t want to go through the cost of doing up an office, just to outgrow it and then go through the cost of doing up a bigger one,” he explains. 

“We thought — right, if we can find a model that allows us to go for the end goal office, and allows us something that we can grow into, but we can share it with others and they can grow in it too.” 

The result is a stunning flexible space offering hot desks away from home, and a venue for business meetings, and corporate and personal events. 

“It’s a real community we’ve been building at the Old Library,” says community manager Lorraine Nicolson, who is pleased to see how freelancers and others who would normally work from home have been able to connect with each other by making use of a shared space once or twice a week. 

The Old Library, which sat unused for over a decade, was initially redeveloped in 2017.

Its subsequent transformation to an office and coworking space involved stripping back much of the interior to install modern heating systems and make each of the rooms soundproof, revealing hidden treasures such as a striking red brick wall and authentic turn-of-the-century fireplace.

“We wanted to create lasting quality within the space, which makes our members want to keep coming back,” said Calvin. 

“Some people describe it as their ‘treat’ work day.” 

Complete with powerpoint screens, boardroom style desks, and a communal canteen, the Old Library on Kirkwall’s Laing Street makes an excellent space to meet, train, or celebrate with your team. 

“We’re licensed for over 100 people,” says Calvin, who has been pleased to welcome larger events of all sizes, including birthday and retirement bashes — complete with bar. 

“The boardroom upstairs has 12 seats, and a big screen for doing Teams calls and a Teams whiteboard, where people on the other end of the call can see what you’re writing and interact with it. 

“It’s a way for those attending virtually to feel much more included. 

“The downstairs space, when it’s set up in training mode, is ideal for things like AGMs, and I’d say that 50 folk is about the sweet spot in terms of capacity there.” 

For foward-thinking CRC, the Old Library has enabled an expansion for the future, with the company setting its sights on clients outside of Orkney as it grows. 

“The model we have is a little bit different than some traditional firms,” said Calvin, who founded the company seven-and-a-half years ago. 

“We deliver the compliance services you’d expect from a traditional accountancy firm, but focus strongly on the commercial side of business advice, through our team members who have served time as finance controllers and finance directors in industry. 

“We found that a lot of traditional firms are perhaps focussed on the past — the ‘here’s how things did’ — and we’re more focused on the ‘where’s your business going and how do we work together achieve it?’. 

“We typically work with businesses between £1 million and £5 million turnover a year, or slightly smaller but ambitious and looking to grow.

“We will sit as their finance director, where they aren’t quite big enough to justify taking someone in-house to do that, and then also take care of the accounts and all the traditional things at the same time.” 

“We find that this one-stop-shop offering has been popular with businesses of this size, and is giving them a more forward-looking relationship compared to those they’ve had in the past.”

The Old Library offers a number of membership packages to suit the needs of your business, including corporate packages that can be used by multiple employees across your team.

Find the deal that suits you now on www.oldlibrary.space