The primary objective of the Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive (IVRLA) Project is to realise the latent potential of a core number of archival collections held in several University College Dublin repositories, by means of their digitisation. An on-line repository prototype which supports and maintains archival authenticity and collaborative research was created for this purpose. The IVRLA has taken key humanities material from five source repositories which contain physical materials in manuscript, printed, audio, video and graphic formats and whose uniqueness or rarity, and in many cases their fragility, is a major obstacle to their availability and use by the scholarly community outside University College Dublin. Having digitised these materials, the IVRLA repository provides a personalised and customisable user interface which offers user defined searches. The new electronic research model facilitates new forms of scholarship allowing for material to be drawn into virtual collections depending upon user research interest or requirements, as well as having the potential to integrate with e-learning tools and collaborative e-learning environments.