The Irish Times has created an online archive of nearly 150 years of content from the newspaper.

The digital catalogue contains every issue of the newspaper, from its first on March 29, 1859, to the present day and can be accessed through the paper's website.

To create the archive, which will be officially launched in early October, the Irish Times digitised over 1,100 reels of microfilm - with each reel containing 700 page images.

Access to the reproduction newspaper pages, which are keyword searchable, will costs users from €10 for a 24-hour pass - though schools and libraries will have free access to the service.

"The importance of the archive is to make previously unavailable material available. Microfilm is not the best medium for this," Niall O'Connor, project manager for the archive, told Journalism.co.uk.

"This is an important and valuable part of the Irish Times' heritage and we felt 150 years of the Times should be brought to a wider audience by placing it online."

The archive, which was co-funded by the Irish Times and Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, has been developed in association with An Chomairle Leabarlanna An Chomhairle Leabharlanna (The Library council of Ireland).