There are almost 320,000 records in our archive catalogue. This is the place where items in our collections are arranged and described so we can find what we’re looking for.
If you have used archives before you will know that our catalogues aren’t arranged by place, subject or date. Instead, records are grouped according to how they were created, and by whom. We regularly apply for external funding to allow us to make previously underused collections much more accessible to researchers. Recent grants have been used to catalogue the Bankes Archive, the Poole Borough Archive and the Cooper Dean collection.
Fortunately, we have moved on from the days of hand-written indexes – free-text searching speeds up research enormously! Just remember to be creative when searching the catalogue and use multiple words to find items of interest. And do let us know if you get stuck!