Glossary of Terms
This is a glossary of the fields used in the online catalogue search results,
which will help you understand the search results you get. This is not a
glossary of archival terms or of words you may find used in the document
descriptions.
Access Status
This indicates if there are any exemptions to the collection for example
hospital case files will be subject to access restrictions. If the collection
has no exemptions, this field will say 'open'. If there are exemptions, please
contact a member of staff for further information.
Admin History
Some Collection level entries have an administrative history which provides
information about the origins, history and responsibilities of the body which
created the records.
Catalogue Reference Number
This is the finding number for the item[s] listed. Each collection in the
archives has a unique catalogue reference number. The archive staff will need to
know this number in order to retrieve the document for you from the archive
strong rooms. The more information you can provide the quicker staff will be
able to produce documents for you to view.
If the Level is larger than an ‘Item’ [Collection, Section] the finding
number may be a general number that covers a large number of items. If you are
unsure about this please contact Doncaster Archives for more information.
You can click on the Catalogue Finding Number to see where the entry fits
within the Collection it belongs to and also what other records can be found in
the same Collection
Date
This gives the date, or date range of the entry you have selected. Please note
that if you are looking at a collection level entry the date covers the whole
collection, so if for example you are interested in baptism registers within a
certain church and there is only a collection level entry for that church, the
dates of the baptism register may not fully cover the date range of the
collection.
Description
This gives further details about the entry you have selected. For a collection
level entry it will give details about the various types of records included in
the collection and for an item level entry it will give specific details about
that item.
Extent
This indicates how large the entry is you are looking at. If you are looking at
a collection level entry the extent could be quite a large number of boxes so
the actual item you are looking for could take some time to find if the
collection is unlisted.
Level
This indicates what level of record the entry is. This information is important
to note as if the entry you are looking at is collection level or section level,
it will contain more than one item. The levels are: Collection, section,
sub-section, series, sub-series, item and piece. These indicate whether the
entry is:
- a single item or a single item within a bundle [piece]
- a section, series or sub series covering a number of items [for example
a section entitled 'log books' could contain many items]
- or a collection, which will be an entry describing the whole collection
and what records it may contain
Title
This gives the title of the collection, section or item which is displayed.