";s:4:"text";s:4100:"And it’s not just our records, right, that it describes? You can then select the value and continue typing to add more.For example, type 'Cro' for 'CAOG - Crown Agents for Overseas Governments and Administrations'Type any part of a place name to see matching suggestions.
Discovery holds more than 32 million descriptions of records held by The National Archives and more than 2,500 archives across the country. And we have the research guides as well which Chrissy was talking about. So that ‘held by’ section will tell you whether or not the record is held here, or whether it’s held at another archive, such as the London Metropolitan Archives or the Lambeth archives. Advice in the podcast about visiting us and using the facilities in our reading rooms will apply once we re-open.Matt: Hello. Try using YYYY or MM/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYYEnter a date in a valid date format. So we know a lot of the records that people are interested in, and so one of the things we’ve done is, knowing those records, as Chrissy was explaining, we’ve embarked on cataloguing projects so that those name-rich records are name-searchable on our catalogue. What is Discovery? It provides a way to explore archival collections from The National Archives and more than 2,500 archives across the … However, overwhelmingly, when somebody, when you are searching the record, what you are searching is a description of the record not the contents, and that description was usually created by the individual who created the record, in whichever time period it was created, so you have to bear in mind that context when you are putting in your keywords that describe that record.Matt: Right. So we hope that that’s enough to get you started.Not all records are catalogued, Treasury records for the 19th century for example.
The Discovery webinar was delivered on 30 September 2016 by Audrey Collins. When you read through your results you’ll see there’s descriptions of the records and a section that says ‘held by’. It’s more than that?Chrissy: No, so Discovery includes both record descriptions of records held by The National Archives but it also includes record descriptions of records held by various archives across the UK, and some internationally.Matt: Right. Use Discovery to access records relating to Britain and British history held at: The National Archives; archives and institutions across the UK; some archives and institutions abroad. However, as an archive we do have a lot of projects that are based on enhancing the catalogue descriptions to make them easier for users to find.