Marie O’Sullivan, former president of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society, has just been in touch to say that,, as of last week, the society has a brand-new website on which all copies of the society’s collection of magazines have been digitised and published.

Marie who has an ongoing ‘love story’ with the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society for 30 years, has been working on the project for the past 12 months.

Electronic Availability

In this time not only has she been responsible for the ‘new look website”, but she has also had all of the society’s publications digitised and made available electronically on the Website.

The Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society, which was founded in 1967, has published 48 editions of the Journal of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society, the first of which was in 1968.

The Kerry Magazine

This publication was joined in 1989, by The Kerry Magazine, which has long been edited by Marie. The digitisation of these publications and their availability online is a major coup for the society. Many of the earlier editions have long been out of print and therefore were not available for would-be researchers of Kerry’s culture and heritage.

Marie, reported that in order to build up a full set for the digitisation project, she stopped short of stealing, but certainly begged and borrowed copies.

Gratitude Where it’s Due

She would like to express her gratitude to: Tommy O’Connor, Kerry County Librarian; Isabel Bennett and Jerry Flynn for donating to the worthy cause.

Marie would also like to thank A4 Stationery, Killorglin, for converting the hard copies into PDFs. She identifies the significance of the project as being, obviously the provision of a permanent record of this very important archive, but additionally it will also provide an incalculable resource for students, teachers, academics, non-academics and anyone else with an interest in Kerry’s rich and varied past.

Merging of Old and New

The website, which was designed by The Brand Geeks, Killorglin, together with Catherine Teehan, Graphic Design is ultramodern in its appearance, proving that the ‘old and new’ can be merged quite successfully.

The Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society, is a voluntary, non-profit making organisation and has received no funding whatsoever towards this project.

It has funded the digitisation and new website, through annual society membership subscriptions from its members.

A Large-Scale Project

“Obviously, such a large-scale project has seriously diminished the coffers of this voluntary organisation, therefore an appeal has been lunched to anybody who is not already a member, to please join to support the venture,” said Marie as she urged people to get involved and the join the society.

Four categories of membership are available at per annum prices and they include: individual at €35; family at €45; student at €15 and institutional at €65.

Membership entitles one to free copies of both publications and access to the society’s year-long programme of events.

Join on The Web

It is possible to join the society via the website. It is also possible to purchase either digital or hard copies of all publications via the website.

“Being cognisant of the times that we are now living in, Marie has stressed that the society is making the publications available as reasonably as possible.and all historic copies are priced at a very reasonable €5 per volume, with more recent editions as in those published in the last five years, at a slightly higher price,” said Marie.

Legwork Taken out of Research

In conclusion, she said that the beauty of the new website is that it is possible to search the indices to the society’s two publications by author/title/keyword, which takes all the ‘legwork’ out of Kerry research.