Searching the digital archive

Digital Archive

The digital preservation department at The National Archives was set up in July 2001 and charged with developing a method of storing, preserving and providing access to electronic government records – everything from emails and web pages to multimedia formats.

Specialists were recruited to meet this challenge - part of the Modernising Government initiative, which is establishing ways for citizens and businesses to communicate with the government electronically.

Following an intensive development period, involving a team drawn from all business groups at The National Archives, on 2nd April 2003 the digital archive was launched. For the first time a digital repository, successfully storing and making available electronic records of government held here at The National Archives was available to users. Visitors to the reading rooms at Kew can freely access this information via linked PCs.

The digital archive's holdings include the records of a number of high-profile public inquiries, departmental websites, and the records of parliamentary committees and royal commisssions. Electronic records can exist in an enormous variety of formats, including office-suite documents, applications, databases, virtual-reality models and audio-visual material.

Our next challenge is for these digital records to be made available on the Internet – allowing access to our readers around the world.

See what digital archive material is:
Available on the Internet
Available at The National Archives

More about the digital archive

Preserving the digital heritage (by Adrian Brown)

Project background

Digital preservation at The National Archives (by Dr David Thomas)

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