Searching the Catalogue

---

Simple search and viewing the results

Our online catalogue lists most of the material we have – documents, photographs, audio-visual material and books.

It is updated regularly, so items will appear almost as soon as they have been catalogued.

The search box is displayed on all pages of the website and, in the Searchroom, you can access the catalogue on our public access computers or on your own device via our free Wi-Fi network.

Simple search

To search, type in a word or phrase and click Search.

This could be, for example, a surname, place name, street, house name, occupation, or it could be a keyword or phrase such as hospital or air raids.

You can specify a search of ‘everything’ (web pages and archive catalogue) or the archive catalogue only.

The search results will be displayed in order, with the most relevant first.

Viewing the results

If the results page includes something of interest to you, click on the title to open up the record and find out more.

You can add a search result to your wishlist and come back to it later. For example, it may be possible to submit a request to view it in the Searchroom.

You can click on the ‘Browse by Hierarchy’ tab to view a record’s place in the hierarchy of a collection. This may help you to find related items which are of interest to you. You can click on other items listed in the hierarchy to find out more about them. You can also click on + and – to expand or minimise a level in the catalogue.

Credit: thank you to West Sussex Record Office with help in compiling this search help.