The Client
The McClay Library at Queen’s University Belfast is home to the university’s main library and research facilities. It also hosts an extensive archive of historical documents, text manuscripts, and photographs, all of which are available to students for research purposes.
The Problem
The Special Collections & Archives section within the McClay Library aims to preserve and protect the university’s important historical materials and improve students’ access to its collections.
One important collection held within the Library’s archive is the Command Papers. Command Papers are government papers presented to parliament. They convey information or decisions that the government thinks should be drawn to the attention of one or both houses of parliament. Command Papers were issued several times a year in Northern Ireland starting in 1922.
As part of its ongoing work, the McClay Library decided to digitally capture the NI Parliamentary Papers held in its archives.
What We Did
Mallon’s security–vetted staff collected the parliamentary papers for secure transport to our data capture facility in Cookstown. Upon arrival, the files were passed through our secure document check–in process to our climate–controlled, fireproof sile storage area.
As required, files were signed in and out of our storage area and moved to the document preparation section, where they were prepared for the scanning and capture process. All files were captured at 600 dpi to produce high–resolution images and ensure that OCR could capture all text correctly.
The vast majority of the parliamentary papers were A5 in size, with some more recent publications in A4 format. These were all captured using our industry–leading Zeutschel book scanner, allowing unrivalled clarity in the final output without damaging the source materials.
Once captured, all document–related imagery were passed through OCR processing, enabling text searches to be conducted on all individual images. Quality Assurance was performed on all captured images to ensure they matched their original documents.
Upon completing the project, Mallon had digitised over 40,000 pages of Parliamentary Papers, including over 100 years’ worth of records that are now accessible digitally. The digital files were indexed by year and returned to the customer via secure FTP upload and external hard drive.
The Benefits
· The McClay Library has been able to provide greater access to a historically significant collection for students and research purposes
· The Parliamentary Papers will be protected and preserved from future damage caused by excessive handling
· Multiple researchers can now access the collection at the same time without the need to travel to the Stormont Assembly Library
· Text searches can be carried out for keywords or phrases, enabling relevant information to be found quickly and easily
· A secure digital backup and external hard drive will ensure the collection will always remain accessible, allowing for 2 points of failure, even in worst–case scenarios
· New insights can be discovered from research conducted on an important historical resource