The Irish Newspaper Archive has been undergoing a slow but steady redevelopment over the past several months. It has introduced a number of improvements while also adding new titles and editions to its database (The Fermanagh Herald 1910-1958 is the latest update, added over last weekend).Among the recent improvements is the option to search across a selection of newspaper titles, rather than just one paper or all papers, as it was previously.
In addition, a full date range search is now possible. You can perform searches across days, weeks, months and or years using dd/mm/yyyy (or even the US Standard of mm/dd/yyyy!), allowing you to really home in on news stories etc with much improved precision.
It's been a while since I last ventured into the Archive and while the 'delivery' of files still seems a bit slow, the overall expererience of using the archive is hugely improved. The reading views offered are so much better than they used to be and there is now a transcription view in nice big text – perfect for eyes grown weary from gawping at small print in poorly typeset paragraphs.
Phillip Martin of Irish Newspaper Archives told Irish Genealogy News that Citation Information is also now included when articles are saved to pdf. The information noted is the name of the publication, the date and page number.
He added that by the end of this week, video tutorials will be available to help those new to the site get to grips with its workings.