RCB Library Notes14 Oct 22

Minister commends digitization work during RCB Library visit

Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media Catherine Martin TD visited the RCB Library in Churchtown on Friday October 7 to view the ongoing digitisation work supported by her department.

The Minister viewed original records, inspected the “Lizard” book scanner – seeing it in action – and talked to Library staff about various aspects of the Parish Registers Digitization Project funded by her department to date. She viewed other records of interest held in the Library including the diary or “Record” of the Library’s founding benefactor Rosamond Stephen.

In 2020 Minister Martin’s department granted €39,000 to continue the digitisation of the Church of Ireland Registers project. Due to the pandemic, this was the first opportunity to acknowledge the grant which followed an initial capital grant of €100,000 provided in 2018.

After being greeted by the chairperson of the Library and Archives Committee of the RCB, Oswyn Paulin, Librarian and Archivist Dr Susan Hood told the Minister of the Library’s background, introducing her to the staff team, and showing her “the Lizard” which is a state–of–the–art machine for scanning unique and fragile volumes. She said that digitizing the registers was important to eliminate the wear and tear caused by people searching the registers.

Once digitized, the records can be made available on screen for viewing in the Library while the longer–term goal is to share them for the worldwide audience on the internet. She said there were about 80 million people in the Irish diaspora worldwide which results in many people researching their ancestors from overseas.

Assistant Archivist Aisling Irwin showed Minister Martin a 186–year old parish register from the Parish of Ballybay in the Minister’s home county of Monaghan, and explained her ongoing role of paginating and preparing such materials for the digitization process.

Digital Archivist Mike O’Neill showed the working of the scanner which is designed for scanning books without damaging the binding. He also outlined the digitization project that includes links to the Library’s handlists of registers, and digital maps providing the historical geography context of each parish.

Minister Martin congratulated the Library staff and commended them on the incredibly important work they are doing: “It takes a lot of dedication, expertise and love and we appreciate it. The officials in the department are highly impressed with the work you do and I want to acknowledge that and thank you,” she stated.

Upstairs further treasures from the Library’s collections were presented, including the oldest parish register, which commenced in 1619 and covers the parish of St John in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. Assistant Librarian Bryan Whelan explained the evolution of some of the Library’s other collections, including the Watson Collection of rare of editions of the Book of Common Prayer including the first one printed in Irish in 1603.

During her visit the Minister also met other committee members including Dr Kenneth Milne and Canon Robin Bantry–White as well as Brian Hollinghead, an OpenStreetMap volunteer, who has shared the digital maps.

Report and photos by Lynn Glanville (Communications Officer, Dublin & Glendalough)