The management and use of the Omagh Bomb Archive

The purpose of this paper is to examine best practices for the management and use of the Omagh Bomb Archive, an archive created following the car bomb in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland on 15 August 1998 which killed 29 people and injured hundreds more.

This research paper examines existing literature on established practices for various components of archive management and compares these findings to data extracted from questionnaires sent to four similar archives on their management practices. It then analyses the creation and development of the Omagh Bomb Archive within this context.

The paper finds that the data provided by the research informed management practices for the Omagh Bomb Archive. The research also established that implementing best management practices in existing archives was determined by the level of funding.

This paper fills a gap in existing literature by examining the best practices for the management of a spontaneous archive created out of a tragic event. It could be used by managers of similar archives to inform and implement good management practices.