Public Record Office Northern Ireland

Excerpt from DPC Annual Report 2008-2009

Over the last year the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland has been involved in several projects to address the challenges arising from the increase in electronic working across the Northern Ireland Civil Service.

Currently, PRONI is not in a position to provide for the preservation of electronic records. The last year has seen a concerted effort to remedy this situation with the aim of establishing a Trusted Digital Repository within the next two years. As PRONI combines the roles of a national archive and a county record office it is envisaged that the TDR will account for electronic records both from Government Departments and Non-departmental public bodies and from private individuals and larger bespoke digitisation projects.

As well as setting up a TDR at PRONI, staff have also been involved in a project that will provide for the archiving of public sector organisation websites. This work has been carried out in conjunction with colleagues from the National Archives and the European Archive. The archived websites will be made available on PRONI’s website once they have been captured and placed in the web archive.

With the rollout of the “TRIM” electronic document records management system having been achieved, attention has now turned towards solving the challenge of providing long-term access to records created with the application. As Departments need to maintain paper records for the entirety of their life cycles, so too will they have to ensure that electronic records are available for as long as they are needed, whether it be five or fifty years. This work, essential to business continuity and accountability, is being taken forward by the Delivery and Innovation Division of the Department of Finance and Personnel, with PRONI acting as external consultants.