eCATNI project
What is eCATNI?
The Electronic Catalogue for Northern Ireland (eCATNI) is the name given to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)’s project to make the contents of its paper catalogues available electronically, both on-site at PRONI and on the Internet.During the course of the project, PRONI has converted its existing paper catalogues – approximately 170,000 pages - into electronic format. This information is now stored in a database and PRONI has purchased a software package which will allow customers to browse and search the catalogues.
Why did PRONI undertake the project?
To widen access to PRONI’s catalogues
Up until now, it has only been possible to access the catalogues by visiting PRONI.
Using eCATNI, anybody, anywhere in the world will be able to access PRONI’s catalogues online.To make searching PRONI’s catalogues quicker and easier
Using paper based catalogues to find the specific information you want can be time-consuming. Accessing information is often a step-by-step process, whereby you must first consult the guides and indexes, then search the relevant catalogue thoroughly in order to find a specific entry.
Searching eCATNI will be much quicker and easier. There will be multiple search options (e.g. any text, title, date or PRONI reference number) and results will be returned instantly.
What are the other benefits for customers?
- you will be able to search PRONI’s catalogues both on-site and online; this means you can carry out research at a time and place convenient to you.
- as you will be able to research the catalogues in advance, you will have more time to spend actually consulting the documents when you visit PRONI.
