Saving our National School records - ANSEO! Project in North Mayo - West Sligo
The ANSEO project aim is to digitally archive all the national school statutory records in North Mayo - West Sligo.
Over 285,000 images have been gathered of school roll-books, registers and ancillary documents - thus preserving them forever. Through the generous support of Heritage Ireland, the project website www.anseo.ie has been developed to showcase the work being done and provide an interface for interested parties to consult with the work being carried out, as well as providing online finding aids of the digital archive itself.
Aside from its own intrinsic value as a unique heritage resource for communities in North Mayo and West Sligo, ANSEO can be considered as the pilot project for a future national programme to archive both the statutory physical and digital records of all schools. To date, the project has revealed a range of material in the possession of local National Schools, which had not been previously studied academically. The project also provides a template for other such local endeavours, using volunteers and digital technology, to preserve their threatened physical records