Projects
Boyne Archives combines archival practice with the technology needed to preserve, describe and share collections. Our work ranges from managing institutional archives to building catalogues, publishing digitised records and developing tools for the profession.
Archival work
We provide cataloguing, digitisation and ongoing archival support to institutions including the Passionists, Glenstal Abbey, the Rosminians and the Pallotines. We have also worked with the Chambery Sisters and Capuchins West Provincial Archives.
Catholic Archives catalogues
CatholicArchives.ie is a shared online catalogue for Irish Catholic archives. Built on AtoM, it allows participating institutions to describe their collections and make them searchable in one place. Its clients include the Dublin Diocese, Capuchins, Vincentians, Holy Ghost Fathers, Presentation Brothers and Presentation Sisters.
CatholicArchives.co.uk is the sister catalogue for Catholic archives in Britain.
Making historical collections searchable
We use text recognition to make digitised Catholic collections easier to search and explore. This work covers Passionist, Capuchin, Vincentian and Glenstal material. One large Passionist-specific batch covered approximately 17,000 scanned page images.
Examples can be explored on CatholicHistory.ie, including its Passionist collection. Machine-generated text is presented alongside the original images so readers can check it against the source.
IIIF and digital collections
IIIF makes digitised collections easier to display, explore and reuse across different systems. Our work covers image hosting, manifest creation, collection websites, viewers and text linked to page images.
CatholicHistory.ie brings digitised material from multiple Catholic archives together in an IIIF-based site. Glenstal Abbey Archives offers another example, including its School Annals viewer.
MyManifests shows the publishing side of this work. We host TinyIIIF to give institutions a managed place to upload images, create IIIF manifests and make them available to compatible viewers and websites.
African Language Materials Archive
Boyne Archives is supporting the transition and digital preservation of the African Language Materials Archive (ALMA), a collection of African-language recordings, texts and cultural materials developed with support from the West African Research Association and formerly hosted by Michigan State University’s MATRIX centre.
The ongoing work includes reviewing file inventories and metadata, checking files against checksum records, supporting the website handoff and planning for long-term access. The collection includes audio and video material in languages such as Hausa, Wolof, Bamanankan and Tamasheq.
Research and public resources
Resources for Researching Irish History Online is our guide to digital archives, genealogical sources, manuscripts, newspapers, maps and other research collections.
The Archive Migration Review gathers documented examples of archives and libraries moving to open-source software. It is edited by Matthew Bruton and operates as an editorially independent resource.
Tools and hosting
Archive Buddy is our AI workspace for archival work. It helps archivists prepare and review work in areas such as description, appraisal, preservation and access, while leaving professional decisions with the archivist.
We provide managed hosting and support for archival systems including AtoM, ArchivesSpace, eScriptorium and IIIF infrastructure. Our dedicated sites serve institutions in the United States, United Kingdom and Italy. Takshif is the Arabic-speaking arm of Boyne Archives, focused on archival systems and services for Arabic-speaking institutions.
Open-source tools and contributions
We develop tools that archivists and researchers can use in their own work. These include the Digital Preservation Skill and Church Latin Skill.
Our growing Archive Tools collection includes focused work on finding-aid cleanup and checksum and fixity review. We are developing these as practical tools in forms suited to different users, including local tools and browser interfaces.
We are also active contributors to AtoM/Heratio, an open-source archival platform built on AtoM’s data model, with work spanning archival description, IIIF, Records in Contexts and optional AI features.
In development
ChurchLatin.ai is an AI translator being built specifically for Church Latin, with attention to the historical and theological meaning of the text.
Escript AI is an AI transcription workbench for historical collections at scale. It is being built to turn large volumes of handwritten and printed scans into draft text that archivists and academics can check and correct beside the originals.
Archivalist is an independent open-source project based on ArchivesSpace. Its development aims to improve speed and security while adding integrated IIIF and AI-assisted archival workflows.