Academic Services

Locating and searching for information about archives online

Simon Wilson,Senior Archivist

26 October 2009

Finding archives:

• only material relating to a locality will be where you would expect to find it (the local City/County Archives)

• material relating to a person or a business can be almost anywhere

• best place to start is the National Register of Archives http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/

always check the archives own website for the latest details of opening times, photocopying, digital cameras etc etc

Access to Archives (A2A):

details from 340+ English archives, is very detailed but not comprehensive, can search by region or archivehttp://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/

Archives Hub:

details of collections held in UK colleges and universities, http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk

Archives Hub, by subject

details from 340+ English archives, is very detailed but not comprehensive, can search by region or archivehttp://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/

Finding a ‘local’ archive:

the best place to start is the ARCHON directory hosted by the National Archives

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon/

Archive online catalogues:• the vast majority of searches and links will take you to an online catalogue for that archive collection

• digital images of the archives are very rareFirst World War Poetry Digital Archive http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/

Moving Here http://www.movinghere.org.uk/

• have a clear search strategy to try a range of names, places and subjects - you will probably be searching an archivist’s description of the item

Most archives use the same underlying database so the search screen will look something like this:

http://archives.hull.ac.uk

Collection summary often provides useful background information including how it was collected, whether it is complete, where related items are etc etc

Quite often you will get a summary results, and it is not obvious that more information is available! (select ‘VIEW’ (or similar) to see the detailed description of that item

Tips:

• contact the archives in advance; check opening times and you can order some items in advance of your visit and enquire about photocopying and using digital cameras

• expect to put coats & bags in a locker and only take through paper and pencils to the reading room

• keep clear records of the reference numbers of items consulted – it will take much longer to retrace your steps!