Digitising history for tomorrow's scholars
The internet has transformed how we access information, conduct business and interact with each other. Kyran Fitzgerald (BA 1976) learns how a major digital repository, the IVRLA (Irish Virtual Research Library & Archive), has unlocked the door to vast resources in some of UCD's priceless collections, spanning four centuries of cultural heritage.
The ambitious IVRLA programme was conceived in the early 2000s by UCD historian and College Principal, Professor Mary E. Daly, and Sean Phillips, then UCD Librarian, to create a centre of excellence for digitisation and to enable online access to UCD’s archival holdings.
The IVRLA repository includes almost 13,000 individual objects such as photographs, music, manuscripts, drawings, letters, paintings and rare printed books, and material continues to be deposited. Among the wide range of historical, literary and cultural material are a collection of the personal papers of Michael Collins, the schools’ manuscript collection of the Irish Folklore Commission, index cards on phonetics from Gaelic linguist Tomás de Bhaldraithe, and press photographs from the papers of Éamon de Valera and former Minister of External Affairs, Frank Aiken.
The IVRLA Showreel: The Treasures of the Past in the Medium of the Future, produced by IVRLA
Professor Gerardine Meaney is joint Research Project Director and Vice-Principal for Research and Innovation within the UCD College of Arts and Celtic Studies. She says, “Deciding what material to select for digitisation was a major task in itself. The project managers sat down with the repository managers to decide on what was the most appropriate material to digitise. We had to be aware of archival sensitivities as well as the privacy and ethical considerations which arose with some folklore material.”
She says, “The potential was there for collaboration between the humanities and new technology. We wanted to train our students so that as scholars they should develop a familiarity with digital tools.” However the project sees traditional and digital scholarship as complementary.
Pictured at the launch of the IVRLA were (l-r, back row): Dr Marc Caball Director, Humanities Insitute of Ireland; Dr John Brooks Howard, University Librarian; Eamon de Valera. (Middle row): Dr Dervila Layden, IVRLA; Professor Gerardine Meaney, UCD College of Arts and Celtic Studies; UCD President Dr Hugh Brady. Front: Audrey Drohan, Professor Mary E Daly, Principal of UCD College of Arts and Celtic Studies
The active phase of the project took place between 2005 and the end of 2009. This involved digitising and cataloguing material as well as creating electronic finding aids to facilitate online viewing and searching. Focussing on preservation and access, the team paid particular attention to maintaining the archival integrity of fragile documentary material. Audrey Drohan was Operational Project Manager during the latter part of the process, during which 32 distinct collections were digitised in collaboration with the many parts of UCD.
Drohan highlights the IVRLA’s remit of creating an open-access, easily-searchable repository. As some of UCD’s material has been either gathered from or donated by members of the public, this is particularly appropriate. Material from the 1937-38 folklore schools’ scheme has elicited a big online response, as have other folklore collections gathered in the 1940s and 1950s, as it allows scholars greater insight into cultural changes over a seventy-year period. However, issues of ethics, data protection, and copyright emerged in relation to these and many other collections across UCD’s holdings. The sensitivities of individuals and families had to be taken into account. People collaborating with folklore collectors in the middle years of the twentieth century could have had no idea that their responses, perhaps including detail of familial economic circumstances, political views, or other sensitive details would be available globally, reproduced in digital form, a few generations on. Along with this, the copyright position needed to be verified for every single item in the repository, with clearance being obtained where required, as the IVRLA is an online publisher of digital surrogates.
These digital surrogates (the online representation of the physical object) have facilitated access to UCD’s valuable historical and cultural material. “The improved access has allowed scholars to look materials in a new way,” says Dr Dervila Layden, Research Coordinator.
Seventeen research projects have been undertaken to date including three on folklore and folk music, one on Georgian Dublin architecture and the built environment, one on the library of the Royal College of Science, and a project on Irish women writers’ of children’s literature from 1870 to 1940. These and other literary and historical projects both present the research and aim to create online research resources.
There has been strong international interest in the collections and the research projects, notes Layden. Private individuals and scholars worldwide can use the materials for their specialist and interdisciplinary work. Digital media also allows for direct contact with the public and reaches out to different audiences, with podcasts such as the one created for the Joyce’s Dublin project proving popular. The project has also produced a series of videocasts in which prominent academic and curatorial staff including Professors Diarmaid Ferriter, Mary E. Daly, and Andrew Carpenter discuss key digital objects and collections which are available through the IVRLA.
<< Previous Video | Next Video >>
More formal external collaborations have also been made possible. Since 2009, the materials of the IVRLA have been available through the cultural heritage portal Europeana, while hundreds of images of Dublin’s architecture, digitised through the IVRLA project, will shortly be available to educators, scholars and researchers across the world under an agreement between the UCD School of Art History and Cultural Policy and ARTstor, a digital library of more than one million images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences.
New areas for research have been opened up, such as the under-examined field of Irish women writing children’s literature. The women writers’ project draws on the three-hundred-strong book collection of Thomas Manning from the late 19th to the early 20th century. Researcher Dr Susan Cahill has carried out an extensive examination into this genre of writing and several of the books have been digitised as part of the project. “A whole chapter of literary history has been made visible,” says Professor Meaney.
The IVRLA is a part of the Humanities Institute of Ireland and is based in the James Joyce Library. It received €2.1m in funding through the Higher Education Authority (HEA) under the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) Cycle 3. As the funded project phase is complete, Dr John Brooks Howard (UCD Librarian) will oversee the transitioning of the IVRLA content and structure into an ongoing digital library programme. Dr Howard notes that an external academic review of the IVRLA project has cited it “as a model exemplar of research-driven digital technology development.”
Professor Meaney says, “It is important that this work is carried out by universities rather than commercially. There is a need for quality control - there are huge dangers in contextless reading and research.” There may be an opportunity here for UCD, and Ireland, to take a leadership role as a creative producer of digital content and knowledge. While the research opportunities are clear, Meaney also notes how the materials bring a new dimension to students’ learning. “The focus now is on sharing with the broader public. I can now teach material which I could not teach before as it was out of print and not available in the Library. It is really good for students to gain access to the primary material as they now have to focus on the text.”
Access the IVRLA collections, research projects and resources at www.ucd.ie/ivrla