New search facility on UK National Archives website
Moderator: MOD_nyhetsgrupper
-
Chris Phillips
New search facility on UK National Archives website
Someone has kindly pointed out to me off-list that the UK National Archives
is testing a new search facility on its website:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/search/
This covers material from the TNA catalogue, the Access to Archives Project,
the National Register of Archives and some other databases. The description
on the website makes it sound as though these are completely covered, but I
found that it didn't bring up all the results that the individual search
facilities give - in fact it appeared to bring up less than half the TNA
results for one search term.
The big advantage is that when a range of dates is specified, it is applied
to individual items in A2A, not to collections as a whole - so the results
really are from the 15th century (for example), rather than being
18th-century items in a collection that starts in 1300. Unless I've been
missing something, this kind of search for A2A material hasn't been possible
previously.
Chris Phillips
is testing a new search facility on its website:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/search/
This covers material from the TNA catalogue, the Access to Archives Project,
the National Register of Archives and some other databases. The description
on the website makes it sound as though these are completely covered, but I
found that it didn't bring up all the results that the individual search
facilities give - in fact it appeared to bring up less than half the TNA
results for one search term.
The big advantage is that when a range of dates is specified, it is applied
to individual items in A2A, not to collections as a whole - so the results
really are from the 15th century (for example), rather than being
18th-century items in a collection that starts in 1300. Unless I've been
missing something, this kind of search for A2A material hasn't been possible
previously.
Chris Phillips
-
Chris Phillips
Re: New search facility on UK National Archives website
I wrote:
I see now that this seems to be the case for some collections in A2A, but
not for others (where the "range of dates" for items returned by the new
search facility can still be several centuries). For these collections,
there seems to be some benefit in using the new search facility, as A2A is
still returning all the matches in the collection, regardless of date. But
on the other hand the new search facility doesn't seem to cover everything
in A2A...
Chris Phillips
The big advantage is that when a range of dates is specified, it is
applied
to individual items in A2A, not to collections as a whole - so the results
really are from the 15th century (for example), rather than being
18th-century items in a collection that starts in 1300. Unless I've been
missing something, this kind of search for A2A material hasn't been
possible
previously.
I see now that this seems to be the case for some collections in A2A, but
not for others (where the "range of dates" for items returned by the new
search facility can still be several centuries). For these collections,
there seems to be some benefit in using the new search facility, as A2A is
still returning all the matches in the collection, regardless of date. But
on the other hand the new search facility doesn't seem to cover everything
in A2A...
Chris Phillips
-
Chris Dickinson
Re: New search facility on UK National Archives website
Chris Phillips wrote:
Thank you for pointing this out. It looks as though it will be very useful.
I may be wrong - but I think that this search engine is fuzzy rather than
being precise like A2A. So a search for 'John Steele' will also return 'John
Steel'.
Chris
Someone has kindly pointed out to me off-list that the UK National Archives
is testing a new search facility on its website:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/search/
Thank you for pointing this out. It looks as though it will be very useful.
I may be wrong - but I think that this search engine is fuzzy rather than
being precise like A2A. So a search for 'John Steele' will also return 'John
Steel'.
Chris
-
Tim Powys-Lybbe
Re: New search facility on UK National Archives website
In message of 24 May, "Chris Phillips" <cgp@medievalgenealogy.org.uk>
wrote:
I have found another problem. It concerns entries for material that is
on the British Library catalogue. The NRA entry is not the same as the
BL entry and can be wrong. It looks as if someone either transcribed
or scanned in the BL entries and made a series of mistakes.
The BL report that their catalogue entries (on a particular item) are
correct and say that corrections should be made to the NRA catalogue.
The is a bit of a maze to find out where to report such problems. I
have made a report to The National Archives and hope it gets to the
National Register of Archives.
Otherwise the NRA catalogue works well and brings up a whole host of
new information.
--
Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org
For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org
wrote:
Someone has kindly pointed out to me off-list that the UK National
Archives is testing a new search facility on its website:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/search/
This covers material from the TNA catalogue, the Access to Archives
Project, the National Register of Archives and some other databases.
The description on the website makes it sound as though these are
completely covered, but I found that it didn't bring up all the
results that the individual search facilities give - in fact it
appeared to bring up less than half the TNA results for one search
term.
I have found another problem. It concerns entries for material that is
on the British Library catalogue. The NRA entry is not the same as the
BL entry and can be wrong. It looks as if someone either transcribed
or scanned in the BL entries and made a series of mistakes.
The BL report that their catalogue entries (on a particular item) are
correct and say that corrections should be made to the NRA catalogue.
The is a bit of a maze to find out where to report such problems. I
have made a report to The National Archives and hope it gets to the
National Register of Archives.
Otherwise the NRA catalogue works well and brings up a whole host of
new information.
--
Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org
For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org
-
Chris Dickinson
Re: New search facility on UK National Archives website
Tim Powys-Lybbe wrote:
I don't suppose the comments below have any bearing on the particular NRA/BL
problem that you have encountered, but it seems worth reiterating the point
below for others ....
A significant part of the A2A online database has been created from
individual archive catalogues that were already in existence (copies of
which were held at the NRA library at Chancery Lane, now at Kew), rather
than from newly archived or indexed material. At least some (and, I assume,
most) of these catalogues have been added without checking back to the
original source material.
These catalogues (or abstracts) were not all compiled by professional
archivists. Many were compiled by whoever owned the archives - in the case
of small family archives, by keen members of the family. This means that
there are inconsistencies in format from catalogue to catalogue and possibly
more errors than if the compilation had all been done by trained archivists.
The basic rule is never to rely on the abstracts given in NRA or A2A
catalogues (bitter experience here!). Always check the original document if
you can.
Chris
I have found another problem. It concerns entries for material that is
on the British Library catalogue. The NRA entry is not the same as the
BL entry and can be wrong. It looks as if someone either transcribed
or scanned in the BL entries and made a series of mistakes.
The BL report that their catalogue entries (on a particular item) are
correct and say that corrections should be made to the NRA catalogue.
The is a bit of a maze to find out where to report such problems. I
have made a report to The National Archives and hope it gets to the
National Register of Archives.
I don't suppose the comments below have any bearing on the particular NRA/BL
problem that you have encountered, but it seems worth reiterating the point
below for others ....
A significant part of the A2A online database has been created from
individual archive catalogues that were already in existence (copies of
which were held at the NRA library at Chancery Lane, now at Kew), rather
than from newly archived or indexed material. At least some (and, I assume,
most) of these catalogues have been added without checking back to the
original source material.
These catalogues (or abstracts) were not all compiled by professional
archivists. Many were compiled by whoever owned the archives - in the case
of small family archives, by keen members of the family. This means that
there are inconsistencies in format from catalogue to catalogue and possibly
more errors than if the compilation had all been done by trained archivists.
The basic rule is never to rely on the abstracts given in NRA or A2A
catalogues (bitter experience here!). Always check the original document if
you can.
Chris
-
Tim Powys-Lybbe
Re: New search facility on UK National Archives website
In message of 25 May, "Chris Dickinson" <chris@dickinson.uk.net> wrote:
All agreed. But it does not lessen the problem of duff catalogue
entries which make it harder to find the right document if you enter
correct search details.
--
Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org
For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org
Tim Powys-Lybbe wrote:
I have found another problem. It concerns entries for material that is
on the British Library catalogue. The NRA entry is not the same as the
BL entry and can be wrong. It looks as if someone either transcribed
or scanned in the BL entries and made a series of mistakes.
The BL report that their catalogue entries (on a particular item) are
correct and say that corrections should be made to the NRA catalogue.
The is a bit of a maze to find out where to report such problems. I
have made a report to The National Archives and hope it gets to the
National Register of Archives.
I don't suppose the comments below have any bearing on the particular NRA/BL
problem that you have encountered, but it seems worth reiterating the point
below for others ....
A significant part of the A2A online database has been created from
individual archive catalogues that were already in existence (copies of
which were held at the NRA library at Chancery Lane, now at Kew), rather
than from newly archived or indexed material. At least some (and, I assume,
most) of these catalogues have been added without checking back to the
original source material.
These catalogues (or abstracts) were not all compiled by professional
archivists. Many were compiled by whoever owned the archives - in the case
of small family archives, by keen members of the family. This means that
there are inconsistencies in format from catalogue to catalogue and possibly
more errors than if the compilation had all been done by trained archivists.
The basic rule is never to rely on the abstracts given in NRA or A2A
catalogues (bitter experience here!). Always check the original document if
you can.
All agreed. But it does not lessen the problem of duff catalogue
entries which make it harder to find the right document if you enter
correct search details.
--
Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org
For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org
-
Chris Dickinson
Re: New search facility on UK National Archives website
Tim Powys-Lybbe wrote:
Absolutely!
Nor the problem of the duff local record office archivist who, after you've
told him that the document you want is among the 16 miscellaneous unindexed
items in Box Dr/15/27/1, writes back two months later to say that the
document requested isn't listed in the catalogue, so he couldn't find it.
Chris
[and before you sleuths go off to check the reference, it's invented!!]
All agreed. But it does not lessen the problem of duff catalogue
entries which make it harder to find the right document if you enter
correct search details.
Absolutely!
Nor the problem of the duff local record office archivist who, after you've
told him that the document you want is among the 16 miscellaneous unindexed
items in Box Dr/15/27/1, writes back two months later to say that the
document requested isn't listed in the catalogue, so he couldn't find it.
Chris
[and before you sleuths go off to check the reference, it's invented!!]
-
Chris Phillips
Re: New search facility on UK National Archives website
I wrote:
It seems that this is because of a pretty serious problem with the search
engine. The "search tips" page implies that the wildcard * can be used in
the normal way, but it seems that the search engine is doing something more
like picking the commonest fit(s) and searching for that/those.
For example, searching for "Sk*pw*th" I find that items containing
"Skipwith" and "Skipworth" are found, but those containing "Skypwyth"
aren't.
That's a pretty fatal defect for medieval searches, and I hope it can be
remedied.
Another more minor difference is that the new search facility knows dates
for some items which the old catalogue search regards as undated.
Chris Phillips
The description
on the website makes it sound as though these are completely covered, but
I
found that it didn't bring up all the results that the individual search
facilities give - in fact it appeared to bring up less than half the TNA
results for one search term.
It seems that this is because of a pretty serious problem with the search
engine. The "search tips" page implies that the wildcard * can be used in
the normal way, but it seems that the search engine is doing something more
like picking the commonest fit(s) and searching for that/those.
For example, searching for "Sk*pw*th" I find that items containing
"Skipwith" and "Skipworth" are found, but those containing "Skypwyth"
aren't.
That's a pretty fatal defect for medieval searches, and I hope it can be
remedied.
Another more minor difference is that the new search facility knows dates
for some items which the old catalogue search regards as undated.
Chris Phillips