Manx National Heritage (MNH) has put a temporary fix in place to keep its online archive of historical Manx newspapers available, after access had been due to end this week.
In an update on Tuesday afternoon (13 October), MNH said people could keep using the archive on its current platform for now, Isle of Man Today reported. A longer-term solution is still being worked on.
The heritage body said the short-term arrangement would give it breathing space to draw up plans for a secure, sustainable service in the months ahead. No permanent solution has yet been confirmed.
The original announcement that online access could end drew widespread concern, according to Isle of Man Today, with many pointing to the archive’s value for studying the island’s history and tracing family links.
MNH described the level of public interest as extraordinary. “We have received countless messages from researchers, family historians and supporters both on and off the island,” it said. It also thanked users for their patience and those who had offered help.
The archive holds more than 400,000 digitised pages from 42 titles, with editions going back to 1792. MNH has said the problem concerns online access, not the material itself. It continues to hold and preserve the underlying digital data, and the original editions remain part of the national collections.
Historical newspapers can also be consulted at the library and archives of the Manx Museum in Douglas.
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