The Client
The Military Archives has been the official place of deposit for records of the Defence Forces, the Department of Defence and the Army Pensions Board since 1990. Its brief is to collect material from the foundation of the Irish state up until the present day, including records from oversea missions.
The Problem
The Military Archives is home to a vast number of historically significant records and collections. A major part of the work undertaken at the Military Archives is to enable greater access for all to the materials contained within their collections. As part of their ongoing work, the Military Archives wanted to digitise several of their important collections.
What We Did
The different projects were broadly similar in their outlook, but each one contained historically significant records from different collections. Due to the historical importance of the collections, care had to be taken at all times when handling the documents to ensure they were returned in their original condition. The Document Capture services we provided to the various Military Archive collections are detailed below:
Project 1 – Record of Events
The ‘Record of Events’ is a document that contains the winners of military sporting events from 1923 to 1985. All of the information was contained in a ledger, titled the ‘Record of Events’.
All materials were scanned and captured to 300dpi in preservation master TIFF format. From this, derivative PDF images were also created. As the majority of pages within the collection had both handwritten and typescript data, the master TIFF image was also passed through OCR to create a fully searchable text document.
From the digital images, specific fields of information were captured, as specified by the Military Archives. In total seven separate fields were captured, including:
- Sport
- Event
- Year b
- Winners
- Runner up
- Unit/Command/Brigade
- time/distance/score
The captured fields were then manually transcribed before being passed onto the Quality Audit Team. They ensured that all the data captured exceeded 98% as required by the customer.
Upon completion of the project, Mallon had captured a total of 3,490 individual records. The results were recorded in an Excel Spreadsheet that was then linked to the text entry and equivalent PDF image. All images were then delivered to the customer on an external hard drive.
Project 2 – Book of Ballykinlar
This project involved the digital capture, translation and transcribing of the Military Archives, ‘Book of Ballykinlar’. The book is a leather–bound volume containing signatures, in Irish, of the internees in Ballykinlar camp during May/June 1921. The book also contained a number of coloured illustrations drawn by the internees.
The book was scanned and captured at 600dpi in preservation master TIFF format. From this, derivative PDF images were also created. These were created at 300dpi to allow for quick and easy access.
For the translation and transcription part of the project, Mallon used the digital images to capture specific fields of information. In total, four separate fields were captured for translation and transcription, including:
- Contae
- County
- Ainm
- Name
On completion of the project, Mallon had captured a total of 1,631 individual records. The results were recorded in an Excel Spreadsheet that was then linked to the text entry and equivalent PDF image. All images were then delivered to the customer on an external hard drive.
Project 3 – The George Walsh Collection
The George Walsh Papers Collection held by the Military Archives contains a variety of documents and images, including handwritten letter, typescript letters, journals, ledgers, photographs and sketches.
The materials were scanned and captured at 600dpi in master preservation TIFF format. From this, derivative PDF images were created at 300dpi. for the photographs and sketches within the collection, derivative JPEG images were also created at 600dpi.
As the majority of pages within the collection had both handwritten and typescript data, the master TIFF image was also passed through OCR to create a fully searchable text document. We used a one pass OCR process (basic/uncorrected) and this enabled us to produce a character level accuracy of 95%.
On completion of the project, Mallon had captured a total of 729 pages. All images were then delivered to the customer on an external hard drive.
Project 4 – Civil War Pension Ledger Collection
Consisting of 35 ledgers in total, with approximately 7,510 single pages, the Civil War Pension Ledger Collection contains details of prisoners who were detained during the Irish Civil War.
All materials were scanned in full 24–bit colour at 400dpi in master preservation TIFF format. From this, derivative PDF images were also created at 300dpi for quick and easy access.
On completion of the project, Mallon had captured a total of 6,337 pages. All images were then delivered to the customer on an external hard drive.
The Benefits
- The Military Archives are now able to improve access to their collections, enabling them to be viewed online
- New research and analysis can be undertaken on an important period of Irish history
- The collections will be further preserved from any damage caused by the handling of the records
- Multiple users can access the collections at the same time
- Text searches can be undertaken for keywords or phrases, helping to find relevant information quickly
- A secure digital backup of the collection will ensure they can always be recovered in the event of a disaster