DIGITAL LAUNCH PUTS COUNTY AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

WEXFORD County Council Public Library Service has officially launched its pioneering Digital Local Collection which brings a wealth of historical material to everyone’s fingertips at the click of a mouse.

The collection includes a wide variety of local material now available digitally: local journals, photographs and postcards and historical texts relating to Wexford.

The local historical and parish journals collection includes The Past, Taghmon History Society Journal, and Wexford Historical Society (Old Wexford Society) Journal.

The photographs and historical postcards of County Wexford collection includes historical postcards of places in County Wexford and aerial photographs from the Billy Colfer collection.

There is also a selection of 19thand 20th-century historical texts and records relating to County Wexford. This selection includes Griffiths’ Chronicles of the County of Wexford to 1877; Fraser’s Statistical Survey of the County of Wexford, (1807); O’Donovan’s Ordnance Survey letters – Wexford; Lacy’s Sights and Scenes in Our Fatherland, (1863); and Grattan Flood’s History of the Diocese of Ferns, (1916).

Senior Executive Librarian Sinead O’Gorman said: ‘With this software we can incorporate a rich variety of content into our collections – photographs, slides, sound clips, digital video, conference proceedings, research papers, e-journals, electronic theses and dissertations, and much more.’

The Digital Local Collection was formally launched by Cathaoirleach of Wexford County Council, Cllr Paddy Kavanagh followed by a lecture by historian and former Head of Special Projects at the National Archives, Catriona Crowe on the topic of ‘Fragility, Intelligence and Salvation: the advantages and challenge of archives digitisation.’

The collection is now available online in an easy to use and searchable site at http://digital.libraries. wexfordcoco.ie

At the launch of the Digital Local Collection in Wexford Library: Eileen Morrissey, Wexford Library; Mayor of Wexford, Frank Staples; Catriona Crowe, who launched the collection; John Carley, Director of Services, Wexford County Council; and Sinead...

Rita Doyle and Seamus Dooley at the launch.

John Doyle and Deirdre Ní Dhubhghaill.

Dr Edward McParland, Pro-Chancellor, Trinity College, and Wexford historian and writer Nicholas Furlong.