London Metropolitan Archives Help |
Welcome to the LMA prototype online Archives database.
This database currently contains over 1,000,000 records. The records
cover collections and holdings for the City of London, Organizations
and Individuals. The following details will provide assistance while
trying to search for records available for searching in the database.
Please note, not all of the holdings for the LMA are available online.
However, those records that have the minimum standard of description
(or cataloguing) and have no restrictions placed upon them are available
at this time. The databases for the LMA are expanding and it is important
to know that the database records are growing in number daily. Therefore,
do not be surprised to see different results between your searches conducted
at different times, different days or weeks.
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| 1.0 Browse Searching |
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Click on the alphabetic character (ie: A,B,C…) that you believe the collection or group of records you are interested in begins with. The system will be searching the TITLE field only. If you click “A”, the system will provide a list of all of the titles that start with the letter “A”. Note, special routines exist in the software to ignore words like: A, The, Some. This ability to ignore noise words like prepositions will make searching or browsing by title much easier. Once you click the letter you wish to search by, the system will produce an online hyperlink listing all titles that start with “A”. Click on the specific title of interest when it appears. Example: “ A “ when clicked will produce a listing similar to the following: A.F AND R.W. TWEEDIE {SOLICITORS} A.F. AND R.W. TWEEDIE {SOLICITORS} A.F. AND R.W.TWEEDIE {SOLICITORS} A.T. UNDERWOOD AND COMPANY {ESTATE AGENTS} ABBEY AND LUCAS {SOLICITORS} ABBEYS, HENRY ABBOTT AND POWELL FAMILIES ABRAHAM, HENRY ACTON HOSPITAL ACTON RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION |
| 2.0 Simple Searching |
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Search Terms… Use the Search Terms to Find records where the value you are searching may be found in any of the following fields within the database: Title, administrative history, scope, related material and/or arrangement. Example: bridge Please note that estimated dates will appear in the form "166-" for an estimated decade and "16--" for an estimated century. Reference
Code |
| 3.0 Advanced Searching |
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Keywords… Use the Search Terms to Find records where the value you are searching may be found in any of the following fields within the database: Title, administrative history, scope, related material and/or arrangement. Example: bridge Reference… Archival databases typically use what is called a “reference code” to name and identify the various collections or groups of records. Searching by archival reference code will be difficult as the code does not necessarily imply anything about the records. Therefore, only use reference code when you know a specific group of records. Reference codes are often found on the physical records for older records and may or may not contain zero filling. Therefore, you may want to click the BROWSE button to the right of the data box to search for a specific code to ensure it has been entered correctly. Format … Enter the specific format of the records you are trying to find. Example: Document Site Location … Enter the specific site or location where the records are residing. Example: London Metropolitan Archives or Guildhall Class … Enter the classification or select from the Browse button the valid list of classifications. Example: Charities London Borough … Enter the name of the borough you wish to find records Example: Westminster This function is not currently available. Place … Enterthe specific non-borough place name you wish to find records Example: London Former Reference Code … Enter any former reference code or numerical sequence you have found on previous searches to help find any former code or identification for the records. Example: RG2342-45 |
| NOTE: Regardless where or in what interface the user is searching, if the user enters a value in more than one of the data boxes or within the same databox, the system will infer the Boolean Operator “AND” between fields and values within the same field/data box. This approach will limit your results. Therefore, the more values entered within a databox or across all of the databoxes on a search page, fewer hits or records found will be returned. All searches have been limited to return data sets of no more than 2000 records at any given time. |
| How do Archives Work?
The London Metropolitan Archives organize and describe its records according to ISAD(G) policies and procedures. ISAD(G) is an international standard developed to enable a common organization and access point for all archives regardless of their domain, history, religion or race or even language. Using ISAD(G), the LMA is storing millions of records for long term access, documentation and preservation. Records are transferred to LMA from a variety of public and private sources, including municipal government departments, private companies, individuals, etc. After the transfer, the records are processed by LMA staff for use by the public. Processing may involve several activities from: appraisals of the documents to conservation reviews to description to ordering and circulation and retention periods. The LMA Archives describes its holdings based on the concept of a multi-level hierarchical description. The highest level of the hierarchy is always a “fonds” level. The Fonds Level, (which yes, is always plural, fonds with an “s”), describes the entire body of records created by the transferring entity. A transferring entity could be the Mayor’s Office or religious organization or a private company, for instance. The records related to a “fonds” or “Collection” may be further broken down into “series” levels. One fond record can breakdown into multiple series. Series again, traditionally the second level under a fonds, are based or created to related or provide further information on a mutual aspect or process. Of course, series may need to be broken down to provide even further details. Series levels can in turn be split down into narrow branches of the hierarchy, including “sub-series”. Sub-Series as well can be further expanded into the concept of “files”. Think of files as a file folder which can then in the hierarchy break out into the file parts, components or to the lowest possible level, an “item”. Items would be objects/documents such as a photograph, a letter, even just an email. The figure below provides a more realistic example of how the archives are traditionally structured within the London Metropolitan Archives.  In this example, Fond (the red folder icon) DRO/001 – Saint Martin,
West Drayton, Church Road, Hillingdon, has a Sub-Fonds (blue folder
icon), two series (green icon folders) and several files (light blue
icon folders) but, in this example, no items. This example is a real
scenario and can be found within the online databases. |