Irish Newspaper Archives migrated to Veridian to support a rapidly growing collection of more than 19 million newspaper pages. Learn how custom features focused on discovery, engagement, accessibility, and access management have helped create a richer experience for members.
The Irish Newspaper Archives is home to more than 19 million pages (and counting) of Ireland's regional and national newspapers, spanning over 290 publications, some dating back to the early eighteenth century. While portions of the collection are freely accessible, much of the archive is available through a subscription model, making platform performance, member engagement, and ongoing collection growth critical to long-term success.
Why Irish Newspaper Archives Migrated from Olive
The collection was previously hosted on the Olive platform. At the time, the archive contained approximately 12 million pages, and concerns were emerging around future scalability and user experience. Performance was already beginning to slow, while the collection was forecast to grow to more than 18 million pages, raising questions about whether the existing platform could continue to deliver the speed and reliability subscribers expected.
At the same time, support for the Olive platform was coming to an end, creating an opportunity to reassess the archive's long-term technology strategy.
The Veridian platform’s proven ability to scale large newspaper collections was a key factor in the decision to migrate. Equally important was the platform's flexibility, which enabled seamless integration with the archive's existing subscription and billing systems while providing the foundation for new member engagement, discovery, and access control features.
Feature spotlight: Enhancing discovery, engagement and access
1. New and Updated Publications module
As one of the largest newspaper archives in Ireland, Irish Newspaper Archives continues to grow through the addition of new newspaper titles and newly digitised content. To help members stay informed, our team developed a dedicated "New and Updated Publications" section prominently displayed on the homepage.
The feature distinguishes between entirely new publications added to the archive and existing publications that have recently received additional content. Presented in a clear, visual format, members can quickly see what has changed since their last visit and immediately access newly available material.
For a subscription-based archive, the feature provides a simple but effective way to showcase ongoing collection growth and reinforce the value of a subscription. By surfacing newly added and updated content directly on the homepage, members can quickly discover fresh material relevant to their interests and stay connected with the archive's continued expansion.
2. Community-focused features
Research is often a collaborative process, particularly for genealogists, family historians, and local history enthusiasts. To support knowledge sharing and discovery, we developed several custom community-focused features.
Members can create and share newspaper clippings publicly, making valuable discoveries available to other researchers. They can also choose to follow other members and receive notifications when new clippings are shared.
The archive’s tagging system further enhances discovery by enabling members to contribute additional context and create new pathways through the collection. These user-generated tags complement traditional search and browse functionality, helping surface relevant new content.
3. Personalised notifications and content alerts
To encourage ongoing engagement and help members stay connected to collection activity, a customised notification system was developed for Irish Newspaper Archives.
Saved search alerts
The platform allows members to save searches. These searches are automatically re-run each day and, when new matching content is identified, members receive a notification highlighting any newly discovered results. This allows researchers to continue uncovering relevant content without repeatedly performing the same searches.
Publication alerts
Members can choose to follow specific newspaper titles and receive email alerts whenever new publications are added to the archive or additional content is added to existing publications. This ensures users are automatically informed when material relevant to their interests becomes available.
Community activity alerts
Community engagement is further supported through notifications linked to shared clippings. Users who follow other members can receive updates when new public clippings are published, helping surface discoveries made by fellow researchers.
More feature spotlights to come
The migration to Veridian provided Irish Newspaper Archives with much more than a scalable foundation for future growth. It also created opportunities to introduce new features designed to strengthen member engagement, improve content discovery, and support the evolving needs of researchers.
In this first instalment, we've explored how the platform helps members stay connected through collection updates, community-driven features, and personalised notifications.
In Part 2, we'll showcase additional enhancements, including integrated content publishing, accessibility tools, advanced search functionality, and flexible access management.
Every collection is different, but many of these capabilities can be adapted for other newspaper, archive, and digital heritage projects. If you'd like to explore what's possible for your collection, we'd love to start a conversation.
Get in touch to discuss what's possible
