New Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) website launched

The Belfast based Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) has at long last launched its new website.

The new website is available at www.proni.gov.uk, a much simpler web address than its predecessor to remember, and if memory serves me right, an address that it used to have many, many years ago.

 

Everything looks slick, but whilst the catalogue is easily accessible from the main home page, one change that is immediately obvious is that you cannot access the digital records from the main home page, as with its predecessor - you instead have to go to the Explore Archives Online tab on the main menu at the top of the screen, and select Family and Local History Archives from the drop-down menu. Each collection's home page has a slight redesign, but it looks like the actual search screens are the same from the previous version of the website. One thing that is nice to see is the hierarchy of links that you go through under the main menu bar, ensuring you know how to get back to the home page or other parts of the trail to the collection of interest.

 

The biggest change is perhaps how the guides are now accessed, and I think this may take a bit of getting used to. I tried to locate the PRONI Guide to Church Records and ended up all over the place, so ended up just typing the name of the guide into the search box, and soon discovered it - but having done so, I still can't identify which collection the guide is contained within, or how to access it other than by the search box, so I think there may be an element of retraining needed here! 

 

Needless to say, all the links on the new site are completely different, so you will need to remark any bookmarks that you have on your PC.

 

Chris 

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