Partnership & Digitisation
A partnership between the National Archives and the Houses of the Oireachtas Service led to the jointly funded digitisation of DE/2 and DE/4.
The National Archives also received funding from the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht’s Culture Division’s digitisation fund.
A contract team including a preservation assistant, scanning operatives and a metadata cataloguer worked on the files in three distinct phases: Conserving, digitising and creating metadata.
Let’s take a closer look at preparing documents for scanning:
To ensure that the text of the files can be clearly read and the documents can be safely handled through the imaging process, the following measures were taken:
![Surface cleaning the pages with a smoke sponge to remove any loose dust on the paper’s surface](https://www.nationalarchives.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/01-surface-cleaning.jpg)
![Removing metal fasteners (butterfly clips; rusted paper clips and staples) using small tools to ensure that no damage is done to the files](https://www.nationalarchives.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/02-removing-metal-fasteners.jpg)
![Removing old adhesive tape, which has caused staining and is covering text, using a metal spatula](https://www.nationalarchives.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/03-removing-old-adhesive.jpg)
![Residues of glue are removed with fine cellulose powder](https://www.nationalarchives.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/04-residues-of-glue.jpg)
![The pieces are put back together with conservation tissue](https://www.nationalarchives.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/05-put-back-together.jpg)
Final Conservation Statistics:
DE/2 files: 13,923 pages were cleaned, flattened and repaired
DE/4 files: 22,240 pages were cleaned, flattened and repaired