The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) has released its annual Digest of Statistics for 2020/2021 (April to March). As you’d expect, the Covid-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the operation of the Belfast repository, with access to physical collections restricted and staff adapting to new ways of working while continuing to deliver archival services. The majority of PRONI staff were not working on site on a full-time basis, in line with social distancing measures.

To download the 19-page pdf of the Digest, click the image right.

Here are some of the main statistics:

PRONI main catalogue: 2,724 new items were added.

PRONI e-catalogue: 15,161 new items published. The searchable database now holds more than 1.5million item descriptions and received 1,692,456 searches during the year.

PRONI online archives: The most popular online collection – Will calendars – received 2,313,448 searches. The second most popular, Valuation Revision Books, was searched 1,158,319 times. Figures for other collections were Name Search (543,126), Street Directories (519,173), Ulster Covenant (204,815) and Freeholders (127,467).

Visitors (in-person): In the five years to April 2020, annual visitor numbers had averaged some 4,200, with the highest number – 4,797 – in the 12 months before the first Lockdown. With the doors closed to the public for much of 2020/2021 year, only 536 visitors were able to use of the Search and Reading rooms. It was not possible to facilitate the registration of new visitors for most of 2020/21; just nine new visitors were registered. There were 2,757 documents requested and produced. While the tightest restrictions were operating, all orders for records were placed by staff in advance, to facilitate quarantining of the records….