How to use Southampton Archives catalogues

The library catalogue enables you to search for documents, records, books and other items held by both the Local Studies and Maritime Library and Southampton Archives.

Some archive catalogues can be searched on the library catalogue, with more new content being added all the time. To search for archive content, you need to select ‘Archives’ from the drop-down list on the righthand side of the library catalogue screen:

You can use the search bar to find records relating to people, places or subjects by searching on a key word. For example, the search below for records relating to Richard III:

You can then select any of the results to find out more about the records found:

Our archive catalogues are hierarchical: it is possible to view all the entries in a particular category of record. For example, a search for Southampton city charters brings up details of all the charters held in a particular series:

As you can see, some of the charters have been photographed, and larger images of the items can be seen on Spydus by selecting ’View full image’ on the right of the screen under the ’Find it’ menu:

The archives and local history homepage contains quick links to historical photos of Southampton, including images of the Titanic, as well as the Isherwood Collection of ship’s drawings, oral history records, and pictures of pre-1870 Southampton buildings.

The homepage gives you the option of searching through the Local History & Plimsoll catalogue (containing records held at Local Studies) and the Southampton Archives catalogue.

Let’s use the Southampton Archive’s quick search button to search for oral history. First, we’ll type the phrase ‘Oral history’ into the search bar.

This will give us a list of oral history records held by Southampton Archives which are available online. A few are seen below:

Next, we’ll click on the one titled ‘African-Caribbean extracts’. This takes us to a page with more information on the recording, which in this case is a compilation of interviews recorded with Southampton’s African-Caribbean community, in which they discuss their experiences and memories of living in the city. The page gives a brief description of the subject of the recordings, when they were made, the people speaking, and what language they are in. 

The Local History and Maritime Digital Archive

The Local History and Maritime Digital Archive contains digital copies of Lloyd’s Registers of Ships, wreck reports, street directories, oral history recordings, maps showing where local Titanic crew members lived and the Southampton Occasional Papers, a series of articles about various local history topics. The archive also contains hundreds of local history photos related to people and places in Southampton.

To use the archive, you can either click on one of the hyperlinks below the search box, or type in a search term and see a list of results. First, let’s look at using the search box. As you can see from the image, ‘Gaiety Cinema’ has been typed into the search box.

Once you have clicked ‘search’ a list of results related to the search term will appear. Below is an image showing a list of results which appears if we search for ‘Gaiety Cinema’.

You can then click on the title for each item, and a page will display showing information related to the photo or document you have selected, including a short history of the featured place, person or topic, when the photo was taken, who owns the copyright, what restrictions might be placed on usage of the item, and a link to the record’s entry on the library catalogue.

You can also switch between this record and other records by using the ‘Previous record’ and ‘Next record’ tabs in the top right-hand corner of the page.

Now, let’s use the links on the main page. They are located beneath the search box.

We are going to access the Lloyd’s Register of Ships. By clicking on the link, a list of the ships listed in the shipping register appears, as seen below.

As seen on the left-hand side of the screen, you can filter the results by availability of the record, when the record was added, what type of material the record is, whether it is a fiction or non-fiction record (all the shipping registers are non-fiction), language, and topic.

By clicking on the link for the Alness, we are then taken to a screen listing the shipping register entries we have for that vessel by year, as shown below. The record also shows when the ship was built, it’s gross tonnage, and what the conditions of access to the document are.

Finally, we will select the 1930 register and its report on the Alness. This will take us to an electronic version of the report, as seen below.

When visiting Southampton Archives, you can use the catalogues on the reading room shelves to browse lists of the records we hold. We have catalogues for our records of council departments, Church of England parishes and other denominations in Southampton, photographs, oral history, and donations made by private individuals and organisations.

The catalogues will show you the range of records we have for a particular subject, as well as providing a reference number for each item. The below image shows a catalogue page listing some of our Civil Defence records.

Once you have decided which item you want to look at, you will need the reference number. In the case of the above page, it is SC/CD, plus the reference number for the specific item you want to view. So, if you were looking for ‘Where to go’, issued by the Emergency Information Officer in August 1941, the full reference would be SC/CD 2/2. Once you have the reference Item reference Reference number number, please fill out one of the yellow index slips in our reading room and hand it to a member of staff, who will then get the item for you.