Surfing the Irish Folklore Commission's Schools' Collection: New beginnings in the democratisation of learning through digital archives

This chapter discusses the growing phenomenon of digital archives, with a particular focus on how they assist us in researching Irish history, heritage and folklore. It argues that in democratising knowledge, these digital archives provide new beginnings and possibilities for researchers. This digital age has ushered in the new educational theory, that of connectivism which argues that 'know-where' has become far more important than 'know-what' or 'know-how'. The chapter will identify and briefly describe a number of digitised archives of interest to Irish Studies scholars, before paying particular attention to The Schools' Collection of the Irish Folklore Commission (IFC), a collection which is available in digitised format at <www.duc has.ie> and which proved a rich and accessible resource for one of the authors while completing a Master's thesis during spring 2020, when traditional libraries and archives were forced to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using an autoethnographic methodology, both authors will discuss their differing experiences of engaging with digital archives. If one's ability to learn what they need for tomorrow is more important than what one knows today, we argue that the digitisation of archives and the theory of connectivism can only enhance future research into Irish Studies.