Discovery | The National Archives blog

Posts tagged 'Discovery'

Fri May

2013

Tagging our past

Posted by Vikki Corker in Records and research, Technology and innovation

A little over a year ago, we developed a new feature in Discovery (our catalogue) that allows our users to add their own tags to our records. Tags are a way for you to add more descriptive metadata to our records to make them more findable.

Will of William Snelgrave, Gentleman of Stepney, Middlesex (catalogue ref: PROB 11/732/98)

When we launched the feature we weren’t really sure how our users would engage with it, or what types of tags they would attach to our records. There are now over 5,000 tags attached to more than 7,500 documents, and that number is growing daily. People tag for all sorts of reasons – to bookmark records they are interested in, to help improve the findability of poorly described records, for research purposes and for fun.

Wed Mar

2013

Discovering discovery across the archives sector

Posted by Melinda Haunton in Behind the scenes

Three speakers on a platform, with a crowd watching them

The packed Forum programme included plenary panel discussions

The National Archives was pleased to host the third annual Archives Discovery Forum on 7 March. The Forum brings together information and archives professionals from across the UK to talk about how to open up access to collections and information about collections. You can see the full programme on the UK Archives Discovery Network (UKAD) website. The Forum is a key part of the work of the UKAD network, to get people together and discussing progress in this area. That can be about major changes to standards affecting the sector internationally or about improving awareness of individual archives’ collections, and anything in between. We know not everyone in the sector is progressing at the same rate, but so long as everyone is going in the same direction, towards ever-broadening access, there is value in sharing our progress.

Tue Mar

2013

Trainee Tuesday: Brave New Worlds

Posted by Chris Day in Behind the scenes, Records and research

LGBT History and Education at London Metropolitan Archives

This year’s LGBT History Month has been a special one for us at London Metropolitan Archives, marking the 10th year of our London Gay History Project, which culminated in our 10th LGBT History, Archives and Culture Conference, Brave New World? (already mentioned on The National Archives’ blog).

LMA’s London Gay History Project doesn’t just end with our conferences however. 2013 will see the launch of our LGBT History Education workshops, which allow young people to use documents from the LMA’s collections to explore themes in LGBT history.

With all of this in mind, I thought this blog would be a great opportunity to highlight and celebrate some of the LMA’s LGBT history sources…

Account of the trial for sodomy of Captain Edward Rigby (LMA reference MJ/SP/1698/12/024)

As has been discussed on this blog before, one of the largest difficulties in researching LGBT history is that before the mid-20th century, the stories of people’s lives are often next to invisible, hidden away in the records of official bodies, using archaic language and usually lacking in detail. This makes researching LGBT history in archives quite a challenge (which is why The National Archives’ Discovery tags are such a good idea!), but I’ve been lucky enough at LMA to have most of the hard graft done already by our community archivist.

One of our most interesting early modern documents is the account of the trial for sodomy of Captain Edward Rigby, which took place in 1698 (LMA reference: MJ/SP/1698/12/024). It tells a fascinating story and paints an unusually vivid picture of homosexual life in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, further context for which I am indebted to historian Rictor Norton.

Fri Feb

2013

Claiming, celebrating, creating!

Posted by Jenni Orme in Records and research

“Claiming our history, celebrating our past, creating our future!” is the motto of LGBT history month which begins today.

LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) history has been in focus at The National Archives for a while now and we have many things going on to contribute to the aim above, and encourage future research in the area.

The rainbow of LGBT can be found in many archives and libraries. Source: www.flickr.com/photos/bluemarla/229631339/in/set-72157608188767044/

Today sees the re-launch of our Gay and Lesbian history research guide which has been updated and streamlined to make it more user-friendly for those starting out in their research. It suggests a number of areas where users may wish to begin, but also, importantly, it suggests historical terminology to use in our online catalogue.

Wed Dec

2012

Finding Archives: what’s next?

Posted by Sam Meunier in Behind the scenes

What is the Finding Archives project?

For the last 18 months we have been working on Finding Archives which is part of the Discovery project. Finding Archives focuses on the bringing together information describing records held in other archives with the information about The National Archives records so that users can access this in one place, simply and easily-a ‘one stop shop’ for access to records relating to UK history wherever they are held.

Finding Archives focuses on the National Register of Archives (NRA), Manorial Documents Register (MDR), ARCHON Directory, Access to Archives (A2A), Accessions to Repositories and the Hospital Records Database (HOSPREC). These services currently provide descriptive and access information about millions of records held in over 2500 archives in the UK and overseas. At the moment, Discovery displays The National Archives’ catalogue data and digital records. The value of combining Finding Archives data with information about over 20 million records held at The National Archives is enormous.

Thu Nov

2012

Discovery: the story so far

Posted by Emma Bayne in Records and research, Technology and innovation

If you’ve used our website in the last 18 months, you’ll be aware that we’re in the process of replacing our old Catalogue with a brand new shiny one. Discovery, our new catalogue, has been designed to provide a similar experience to the search tools found elsewhere across the web, with features like filters (to refine searches) and tagging (to help other people find records). It has also been designed with large volumes of data in mind – the old Catalogue was creaking under the weight of several million records, and with many more to come in the next few years (especially with the impending shift to 20-year rule, and the expected arrival of even more government records) we decided that the time had come to build a new one.

Screenshot of Discovery

Right from the outset we knew that it would be an enormous undertaking. Our ambition has always been to replace not just the Catalogue, but also to incorporate data from other systems such as DocumentsOnline, the National Register of Archives and the ARCHON directory, in order to provide a ‘one-stop shop’ for anyone wanting to search our collection – and those held by other archives – and to download digital copies of records where available. The practicalities of doing this have been challenging, to say the least – with a number of different technical systems to deal with, along with enormous amounts of feedback from our many different user groups and staff, it has taken time to build a system that fulfils all our users’ needs.

Thu Aug

2012

Design through research: The concepts behind Discovery

Posted by Donald Phillips in Technology and innovation

Image from Stephen P. Anderson's Poster from IA Summit 2009

As many of you may know, The National Archives has launched a beta product called Discovery. Discovery is not only a replacement for our current catalogue, but it will eventually provide a platform to enable searching across the many different databases and datasets held at the archives.

The aim of Discovery is to create an effective and enjoyable user interface through an understanding of who our customers are: their tasks, expectations, capabilities, limitations, preferences and context of use. The best interfaces are known to not only support goals and tasks but also recommend interactions that extends users’ activity in ways that makes their journey more effective and satisfying.

To achieve this, our design and development process has involved users from outset and where feasible, as active participants. We have used multiple methods over the last few years, such as interviews, diary studies, surveys, workshops, focus groups, web log analysis and user testing to acquire understanding and empathy towards the needs of our customers.

Graph showing research strategies: Christian Rohrer 2008

Wed May

2012

BT 31 – The Birth of Industries

Posted by Simon Demissie and Matthew Pearce in Records and research, Technology and innovation

SD – Ahead of Hack on the Record held at The National Archives back in March – the results of which you can see on our Labs website – I discussed with colleagues in the Advice and Records Knowledge department the possibility of pitching interesting and appropriate documents or record series to the developers attending the event. One suggestion regarded the catalogue data for BT 31, a series which contains the files of dissolved companies.

BT 31 relates mostly to the period 1860 to 1930

Fri May

2012

Introducing Discovery, our new catalogue

Posted by Ruth Ford (admin) in Technology and innovation

The next phase of Discovery, our new catalogue, has launched with the addition of a delivery service for digitised documents. David Thomas, Director of Technology at The National Archives, explains why we’ve built a new catalogue and how it will help us provide more access to our records than ever before.

Watch this video on YouTube

Wed Mar

2012

#hackon12: We came, we saw, we didn’t sleep much

Posted by Jo Pugh in Technology and innovation

A few weeks ago when I talked about the purpose of hack days I promised I would report back after we had actually held one here at the Archives.

Last weekend, a large group of enthusiastic attendees joined us here at Kew for Hack on the Record. I think it might be the first hack day held actually inside a UK government department but I’d be happy to be proved wrong.

Approximately 12 hours in - only 12 to go!

Authors