The National Archives of the United Kingdom is the "UK government's official archive containing 900 years of history with records ranging from parchment and paper scrolls through to digital files and archived websites." Open records are accessible to all, onsite or online. The National Archives also offers guidance and support to government departments and public sector regarding information policy and management.

The Archives main page is attractively designed, broken up into boxes and sections, and incorporates a comprehensive amount of information without appearing cluttered. Highlights of the main page include a keyword search box, links to podcasts and newsletters, recent news from the Archives, featured online exhibitions, professional information management, information on family history (genealogy) military history, and learning and research. RSS feeds are available for various aspects of the site.

Aside from the keyword search box, The Learning & Research section is how one would access the Archives's catalog. The catalog "contains 10.7 million searchable descriptions of records from central government, courts of law and other UK national bodies." The records (and their descriptions) are organized under the different government departments that originated them. The catalog, however, does not contain images of the documents; in order to access a document, one must visit the archives or request copies of the document for a fee.

Basic search includes a mandatory keyword field and optional date range and department/series code fields. One can also separately search through the "places, prominent people & subjects" tab which offers an A-Z list of index terms that one can search or browse; one can then go back to the main search and type in the relevant index term. It is worth noting that subject index terms have not been added to the catalog since April 2007 (this is indicated on the page). Advanced search offers a multitude of searching delimiters that allows one to search specific data fields in a catalog record. Finally, one can also build a query, which allows one to search any of the data fields available in the catalog, make use of multiple criteria and boolean operators, and select fields more than once to search for ranges of data.

I appreciated that each search option offers an inset of basic searching tips without having to navigate to another page. Also, the catalog offers links to many research guides for specific departments for those who many unsure from which department a particular originated. The Archives seems to offer a great deal of information, but it appears that the catalog at least is most useful who have somewhat of an idea of what they are looking for. The size and scope of the Archives makes browsing and searching difficult if you just happen to stumble upon it and want to explore; despite its comprehensiveness, it's a little overwhelming.

Among the other databases used by the Archives include, but are not limited to, the following: Access to Archives (A2A), which contains catalogues describing archives held throughout England and dating from the 900s to the present day; Documents Online, which is intended for family, local historians, acedemics, and schools (images of documents available to download for a fee); Electronic Records Online, which offers online access to born digital records (images of documents available to download for free); Reference Library Catalog; UK Government Web Archive, in which one can browse through government based websites under a number of categories, and The National Register of Archives, which contains information on British manuscripts and historical records. Though the majority of the records are accessible in person or can be requested, there is a good number of records that are accessible online.

I think the site does a good job of trying to lead people to the right database they want to go to in order to find something. The availability of so many options is great, but ultimately useless if people don't know how to access materials. I mentioned the research guides above, but the "how to" features are just as helpful in trying to ensure that people find what they want. Though this is the the UK's Natioanl Archives, I'd classify it more as a " records and archives" institution, given that there is a strong records management component to the site. Also, the site offered a lot of insight and transparency into its operations, specifically in terms of making accessible their strategic planning, administrative, management, and preservation policies, annual report, and digitization initiatives. Overall, I mostly just enjoyed clicking through the site, trying to get a handle on their catalog and discovering what sorts of records and documents were available to view. Also, it was particularly interesting to see how a country with far more history than the US handles all of those records and archives.