Latest news from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland stakeholder forum

On Friday I attended the latest Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) stakeholder forum meeting in Belfast – it was actually held online via Zoom, but I had mistakenly assumed it was on site again, as per the last one (which I missed as I had to go to a funeral in Dublin), and ended up attending it virtually alongside Stephen Scarth, whilst on the office floor of PRONI! (A big tip of the hat here to Gavin for setting me right!). This was my first visit back to PRONI since January 2020, and it all worked like a dream, including a very quick and simple update of my Visitor's Card.

HERONI library relocation to PRONI

By far the biggest news item is the announcement that the Historic Environment Record of Northern Ireland, aka HERONI (https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/topics/historic-environment/historic-environment-record-northern-ireland-heroni), is relocating much of its library content to PRONI's Public Search Room in the next few months. (For those in Scotland, HERONI is NI's equivalent of Historic Environment Scotland). The plan is to essentially relocate the current PRONI microfilm area further along the search room floor, and for HERONI to then colonise that space to provide access to its own library collection.

This is not a merger of HERONI and PRONI – 15 members of HERONI's staff are due to relocate to the PRONI building, and it will be operationally independent to PRONI. HERONI has its own library catalogue, with about 10,000 publications and journals, with library holdings arranged by county and topic, and access will be via an appointments based system. There will be some work carried out in the Public Search Room to accommodate this relocation, including an extension and re-orientation of the enquiries desk on the floor. The PRONI library itself may be integrated with the HERONI offering, although this has not been confirmed yet.

HERONI staff are expected to be up and running on site by January of 2024, so this is all happening fairly quickly in the next few months. In terms of the affect on PRONI's offerings, there may be a very small reduction in the availability of computers, although this is not seen as a serious impact, with most folk now arriving with their own laptops and phones to gain internet access, not something that was necessarily the case when the premises at Titanic Quarter opened over a decade ago.  

New PRONI catalogue system

With regards to the computers on site in the Public Search Room, a new system is shortly to be rolled out on site for the PRONI catalogue. The on-site catalogue currently uses a system called 'Calm', this is to be replaced by 'Axiell Collections', a more modern set up. Some last-minute work is still ongoing to get this to optimum use for PRONI's requirements, but it is expected to have been rolled out by the end of October. The online catalogue accessible via the PRONI website, which differs in look and function (but which covers the same collections), will not be affected.

Records

On records, the latest update to the PRONI catalogue of accessible digitised images took place in August. A major offering now is the Madill Archive (D4790), with surveys, photos, drawings etc of old sailing vessels and boats from around Ireland. There is a new page on the PRONI website about the collection at https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/madill-archive-project.

On private records, The Legacy of Past Family reports is now being worked on, for the Ulster Human Rights Advocacy Service, tied in with the Troubles (D4791). Work is also being carried out on records for Swift's Alley Dublin, Ireland's first Baptist church in 1653. There are 5 volumes of accounts, members lists etc, from 1698-1799.

New accessions:

• Papers of former Unionist MP for North Belfast., Stratton Mills, from 1951-2000 (CR11/1/131).
• Family papers of Jordan Reid, who lived in NI and relocated to the USA, with letter books from Pittsburgh, diaries etc, covering 1851-1951 (D4907).
• Lady Mary Peters' papers from 1973-2022 (D4919).
• The papers of SANDS, a Christian charity established in 1869, which dealt with military bases in the UK and Ireland, as well as overseas in places such as Hong Kong and Singapore. Materials include photos, glass plate negatives, minutes and more, from 1893-2023 (D4095).

Cataloguing:

• Cara Friends Archive (D4437)
• Michael J. Murphy papers – his note books, drafts, plays, etc (D4642)
• Sam Bell, broadcasting career (D4603)
• Church Registers for Donagheady have been digitised 1830-1874 (CR1/26)
• Robert Laverock, UTV career (D4825)
• East Belfast Historical Society (D4750)

Annual PRONI release:

This is in two tranches. On August 25th 2023, 2000 files were released under the 30 to 20 year rule change. The next release will be at the end of December 2023.

PRONI Review

PRONI has not had a formal review of its operation since 2004, and so a full blown review is now being carried out independently by Deloitte, which is currently carrying out a desk based exercise as a part of that, plus workshops. The purpose is to determine what PRONI does and how it helps to make lives better, etc.  

Collab Archive
(https://collabarchive.org)
The Collab Archive's current project funds continue until the end of September, trying to find new ways for volunteers to engage with PRONI's holdings. 

There have been several events, including a digitisation open day, an exercise transcribing records from the Cara Friends Collection, and two transcriptions events to do with PRONI 100 collections examples, such as vaccination registers (including from the Shankill), and passenger lists. There are two forthcoming events on September 14th (Conservations demonstration for volunteers), and on September 20th a half day conference celebrating achievements.

PRONI 100:

Stephen Scarth gave an update on the PRONI 100 years centenary celebrations, including the success of the PRONI branding for the year's events, as well as the events themselves, such as the Good Friday Agreement Conference, and the loan of a copy of the US Declaration of Independence from TNA and exhibited at PRONI. In May, PRONI went to the Balmoral Show for the first time in eight years, and the archive also successfully recently hosted the Archives and Records Association Conference in Belfast, the first time it has been in Belfast since 2007. In September there will be a half day event looking at the work of the first director of PRONI. The Depositors Day event is moving from September to February next year. There will also be a closing event for the centenary in March 2024.

As part of the centenary, PRONI partnered with Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) to make many collections online. These were third party indexes for collections already hosted on the PRONI website, but by far the most useful is the Northern Ireland, Valuation Revision Books, 1864-1933
index at https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/62658/, which means the Valuation Revision Books are now name searchable for the first time.

As ever, there's plenty happening in Belfast!

Also, a quick shout out to the Ulster Historical Foundation's Wiliam Roulston (pictured below) and Gillian Hunt, who I managed to catch up with yesterday, and to have lunch with. I had a great chinwag with William and former PRONI staffer Ian Montgomery over lunch, and there are some exciting things happening with the Foundation imminently, including the launch of its new website, and a forthcoming book project that William is working on which is very exciting - keep an eye out at www.ancestryireland.com, and its social media channels, for more news on these soon!

(With thanks to Stephen, Janet, and everyone else who contributed, and to William and Gillian of the Foundation)

Chris

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