Yesterday (Friday 19th September) I attended the latest stakeholder forum of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, aka PRONI (https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/campaigns/public-record-office-northern-ireland-proni). The following are some of the latest developments and news items.
Stephen Scarth kicked off proceedings with an update on the recent 5-year independent review carried out by Deloitte into PRONI's set-up. As a consequence of this, PRONI is and will be advertising for several new positions, including a new director, deputy director, head of marketing, and head of outreach. An interesting piece of news was that PRONI now has 88 members of staff, an increase from 64 a few years ago, reflecting the growing workload of Northern Ireland's national archive. In the next year PRONI will be implementing a new communciations plan with further advertising about its services, following successful efforts on that front over the last year in delivering key objectives for the archive, and with a specific budget allocation to do so.
The BIG headline item however is that PRONI's public facing website will be changing very soon. The site is currently available at https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/campaigns/public-record-office-northern-ireland-proni (or the shorter https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/proni), but PRONI and NI Direct will be going their separate ways shortly. The archive is taking the opportunity to not only change the landing page URL (I have an idea what this might be, but will hold off on mentioning it until it is confirmed), but also to revamp and streamline the core content. There will still be access to research guides, records, and the catalogue, but a lot of dead wood will be stripped out, some content updated, and in all cases, the URLs that you may have bookmarked will be changing. So this is going to be quite a major evolution, although considering the site has not been updated in many years, it is quite understandable. As with previous PRONI content, the old site will be archived in PRONI's Web Archive (currently at https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/information-and-services/search-archives-online/proni-web-archive, but this URL will also change!). I look forward to seeing the new site as PRONI confidently pushes ahead.
Sean Hayes updated us on the Now We're Talking Project (https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/now-were-talking-project), in partnership with the Nerve Centre (https://nervecentre.org/culture/now-were-talking). PRONI is currently cataloguing the papers of Michael J. Murphy (some 3000 items), and will soon turn to work on the Sam Hanna Bell Archive in the New Year. The Micheal J. Murphy collection (D4642) includes a great deal of folklore collated around much of the west of Ulster and some southern counties (Louth, Sliogo, Leitrim), covering a range of material from witchcraft to the atomic bomb! A small number of files will be digitised for access through the main catalogue as part of the project.
Grace Gordon updated us on many recent events with which PRONI has been involved, as part of the archive's currently year theme of creativity and innovation. PRONI attended the Belfast Mela festival for the first time, engaging with chikdren through a variety of resources such as images to be coloured in, stickers, archive based word-searches, and more. On Saturday 4th October there will be an Autumn in the Archives event at PRONI, with details on this available at https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/autumn-archives.
In the main PRONI building, the new Axiell-based catalogue system has now been successfully launched in the search rooms, as of July, replacing the previous Calm-based software. Previous problems such as slow response times have now all been resolved. Stephen also advised that the PRONI maps viewer will be moved to a new platform. I asked at this point if this will affect the PRONI Suffrage Map available at https://dfcgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=58d83b0ec9ce4c60be299bfa12780c77, which Stephen will look into.
Next year sees the US 250 celebrations, as the United States celebrates its independence, with many Presbyterian Ulster Scots at the fore of the movement to break away from British rule (several were signatories of the Declaration of Independence). Both PRONI and its parents department will be organising events to tie in with this. PRONI will be producing a coffee table book highlighting 60 key documents highlighting the relationship between Ulster and the USA from the 17th to the 20th centuries. There will also be an on-site exhibition, featuring a letter delivered by Ulster Scot Charles Thomson to George Washington at Mount Vernon in April 1789, advising him that he was now the president of the newly created USA. This will be the first ever international loan on display at PRONI. There will also be a loan of a copy of the Declaration of Independence held at TNA in England, and a great deal more. PRONI is also preparing a travelling exhibition for display around Northern Ireland, and in the USA.
On November 7th there will be an Irish Studies Conference event at PRONI marking the 100th anniversary of the Irish Boundary Commission, more specifically the date when its findings were leaked to the press! The commission's political failure led to the modern border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State (now the Republic) being fixed along current lines. You can read more on this at https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/1925-irish-boundary-commission-centenary-conference.
Finally, the last week of November (24th-28th) once again sees Preservation Week at PRONI, when archival productions will not be available for consultation, only the self-access materials in the public search room. Something to be aware of if planning a visit to the archive!
(With thanks to Stephen and the PRONI team)
Chris
Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.
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