RDA Ireland Meet The Experts: Joanna Finegan and Maria Ryan - "Archiving the Irish web: saving Ireland's online record"

Since its foundation in 1877 the National Library of Ireland has been collecting, preserving and sharing the documentary record of Ireland. Today so much of that living record is online and is in many ways more fragile than paper. Since 2011 NLI has developed an openly available selective and event-based web archive. This talk looks at NLI's approaches to web archiving and how the library archives events such as elections and referendums and responds to global events such as Brexit and Covid-19. It also outlined how the web archive has moved to becoming a more diverse and inclusive reflection of Irish society in the 21st century.

View the supporting slides from Joanna Finegan and Maria Ryan. 

Meet the Experts: Joanna Finegan and Maria Ryan, Digital Collections, National Library of Ireland (NLI)

Joanna Finegan works on web archiving and the NLI’s pilot project on unique born digital material. She has previously worked in the Printed Books, Prints & Drawings and Outreach departments of the NLI and with library catalogue data.

Maria Ryan is the web archivist in the NLI. A qualified archivist, she is co-chair of the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) Training Group. Prior to working in the NLI, Maria worked as a digital archivist on the Abbey Theatre Digitisation Project at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

The talk was moderated by Dr. Sandra Collins, Director of the National Library of Ireland and RDA Ireland national node Coordinator.