In this blog, we highlight some of the upcoming archive outreach campaigns that the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) will be participating in to expand the reach of our members’ collections.
The Archives and Records Association (ARA) Ireland is running several exciting social media campaigns throughout 2022 to promote archives, their contents, and the work of archivists. These archive outreach campaigns are an opportunity for the public to explore archival collections and see what treasures they can discover. In this blog, we highlight some of the upcoming campaigns that the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) will be participating in to expand the reach of our members’ collections and to reinforce the benefits of opening up cultural heritage and social sciences data for the greatest discovery and reuse.
Explore Your Archive
ARA Ireland’s monthly #ExploreYourArchive campaign operates across three social media platforms; Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Each month, archives and repositories are encouraged to share objects from the collections they steward that relate to monthly themes. Explore Your Archive day takes place on the 10th of each month but organisations can participate at any stage throughout the month. The Explore Your Archive team searches for the campaign hashtags daily and reposts content across their social media channels, thereby further expanding the reach of collection material.
The monthly thematic Explore Your Archive campaign grew from ‘Explore Your Archive Week’, a week-long celebration of the best of archives and archival services across Ireland and the UK that takes place annually in November. In 2021, the DRI launched its first Instagram Account during Explore Your Archive week enabling us to highlight the rich collections that we steward with an even wider audience.
In addition to the monthly #ExploreYourArchive campaign, archives and repositories can participate in the archive outreach campaigns listed below to expand the reach of archival collections.
Archive Outreach Campaigns – Dates for Your Diary
- 1–17 March #ARAIrelandSnaG120 – A campaign celebrating the 120th anniversary of Seachtain na Gaeilge through highlighting archival collections related to the Irish language
- 1 July #ArchiveDiaspora – A campaign celebrating Irish diaspora abroad and the new Irish who have made Ireland their home
- 4–28 Oct #ArchivistAppraiseThyself – A month-long #MindYourMind campaign to improve mental health and fitness
- 26 Nov – 4 Dec #ExploreYourArchive Week – A week-long celebration of the best of archives and archive services
- 23 Dec #ArchiveSanta – A festive campaign where participants are encouraged to get into the holiday spirit, get their names in a hat, and surprise their Secret Santa recipient with a festive tweet
- 1-25 Dec #ArchiveAdventCalendar – A global campaign run by ARA Scotland where archives and repositories around the world are invited to share content from their collections related to daily festive themes. In 2021, DRI collaborated with our friends at Dublin City Library and Archive (DCLA) to showcase the beautiful black and white images that can be discovered in the Fáilte Ireland Tourism Photographic Collection as part of the #ArchiveAdventCalendar campaign.
DRI looks forward to participating in these cultural engagement campaigns throughout the year with the aim of sharing our members’ collections more widely so they can be opened up and explored for education and enjoyment.
We invite you to keep an eye out for the hashtag #ARAIrelandSnaG120 throughout the month of March. As part of the #ARAIrelandSnaG120 campaign, will be highlighting Irish language collections that we steward for our members such as the Raidió na Gaeltachta (Seán Mac Giollarnáth) collections, which draw together a selection of programmes from the Raidió na Gaeltachta archives about the life and work of folklorist Seán Mac Giollarnáth; the Doegen Records Web Project of Irish dialect recordings made during 1928-30 deposited by the Royal Irish Academy Library; and the COMHARTaighde Collection, an academic journal that publishes high-quality research in the area of Modern Irish Studies to serve the global Irish language community.
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