Discovery is an eyeopener!

[Phoenix]

I think that that is because Discovery is TNA's own collections, while the quick search includes other archives.

It'll be interesting to see whether they keep that facility going.

[Mary from Italy]

More from the FAQs

What's happening with our online resources, like the National Register of Archives and Access to Archives, which describe material held elsewhere?

Our online resources, which include the National Register of Archives, the ARCHON directory, Accessions to Repositories, Access to Archives, the Manorial Documents Register and the Hospital Records Database, provide a window to many rich and vibrant collections relating to British history, including information about the location and nature of these records.

Last year we reviewed these resources to ensure that they meet the needs of the archives sector across the country and its stakeholders. We captured feedback about the current look and feel of these resources and the process of contributing data to the systems, which many archive-holding institutions go through, plus aspirations for their future development.

This year we are looking at how these resources can be incorporated into Discovery technically, so that we can improve the way users explore our collections and others relating to British history.

How does Discovery relate to website (global) search?

Discovery searches the catalogue and DocumentsOnline data. It also suggests useful research guides for particular search terms.

Global search searches data across our whole website, including Access to Archives, the National Register of Archives and all our web pages and catalogue. As with Discovery, you can limit your search to specific subject areas. You can also limit global search to particular sources, such as the research guides or ARCHON, for example.

The launch of Discovery will not affect how global search works, although work is being undertaken to match up the subject areas of Discovery and global search. We are carrying out a project over the next few months to look at how we can improve our search across the whole website.

That sounds reasonably reassuring.

[Mary from Italy]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

It'll be interesting to see whether they keep that facility going.

It would seem ludicrous to abolish it, when it's the only central database of holdings in the various records offices, etc..

Personally I don't see the point in having two searches, one Discovery and one for everything else - I hardly ever used the Catalogue search previously, and didn't really feel the need of it, because everything I wanted turned up in the Quick Search.

[Phoenix]

I have heaps of bookmarks and saved searches - which I imagine will now be lost. I printed off past orders in case that too went walk-about.

I do understand the difficulty of E179 and the Exchequer court cases and all the other little databases which got overlooked because they were not part of the Catalogue (and I'm not sure that they came up on the quicksearch at all)

The IT guys have been moaning for years that the Catalogue was not fit for purpose but it was excellent for ferretting out all the obscure misspellings without the need of a fuzzy search.

[Mary from Italy]

When I find something useful on TNA I generally copy it into a Word file to be on the safe side.

[Phoenix]

Past orders are a really useful way of seeing how your mind was working, or which document actually held the goodies. My list runs to well over ten pages. You can, of course, download the catalogue into excel, so you can sort it which ever way you want.

[Mary from Italy]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

You can, of course, download the catalogue into excel, so you can sort it which ever way you want.

I didn't know that - how do you do it? I can't see anything on the Catalogue search page.

[Phoenix]

Do a search in Discovery and there is an option on the extreme right to download - in whatever is the most appropriate format for you.

I have no idea whether it is still the case, but there used to be additional fields captured which were not visible in the Catalogue.

[Mary from Italy]

Oh, I see what you mean. I thought you meant you could download the whole catalogue, which seemed unlikely, because it must be huge, but it just downloads the search results.

[Phoenix]

Any search is limited - probably to a thousand results - but in theory you could download the entire Catalogue in chunks by using a combination of wildcards and date/department/piece number restrictions. Though I'm not sure why anyone would want to: the enhancement process is continuous and I keep on discovering items that I don't recall being described in the past.