WEST FIFERS will be treated to fascinating interactive displays when the new £12million Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries opens in 2017.

Lesley Botten, Fife Cultural Trust’s display design and activities curator, has given tantalising glimpses of what awaits at the new museum – with an icon of the city’s industrial past expected to greet visitors as they enter.

Lesley told the Press: “When you come into the building, the first thing you will see is our hand loom – it’s quite a large wooden structure and comes from the 19th century.

“It was still used in the 1900s to weave Dunfermline tablecloth and you will see it lit up like a piece of art.

“To bring it to life we have commissioned a film which will be projected on the wall – and for part of it visitors will get the experience of the sound and feel of a whole factory of looms working.”

Other experiences in store are the selected oral recordings – the one of the Dunfermline trams even includes a little boy picking at the leaves from the open-air carriages.

Lesley also launched an appeal for volunteers who might have worked in Dunfermline’s weaving industry.

She explained: “We’re looking for women who worked for the two biggest companies, Erskine Beveridge and Hay & Robertson.

“There were thousands of women working in the factories, but so far we’ve only found two men.

“We’re also looking for ‘crafty’ people who might be able to help string the loom.”

Those interested should email museumteam.dclg@onfife.com or call 03451 555555 ext 492780.

The museum project is being funded by Fife Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust.

Fife Cultural Trust will operate the new facility when it opens and is also fundraising to meet the final contributions required to deliver the project.

The museum reached a milestone recently with the addition of a tower crane on site.

The crane, put in place on October 20, will be on site for 23 weeks and is being used during the construction of the concrete frame, external walls and roof.

Progress this year has included the partial demolition of the town house next to the library.

A structural steel frame has been put up along with concrete floor slabs and a roof structure behind the town house’s historic façade.

The below-ground foundations and ground-floor slabs, forming part of the new extension, are almost complete and work on the concrete frame and upper floor slab works will begin soon.

Lesley added: “It was really exciting to watch the huge crane boom being assembled on the ground in Canmore and Abbot streets and then being lifted right over the roof of the library.

“It’s exciting too because the crane’s arrival means that all the very necessary foundation work is nearly finished and the walls of the new building will soon start to rise.”

Councillor Gavin Yates, executive spokesperson for community health and wellbeing, added: “This facility is set to be a great asset to the heritage quarter and wider town centre.

“The integrated cultural hub hopes to attract up to 280,000 visitors and contribute a visitor spend of at least half a million pounds to the local economy each year.”