Online Use
The Service Website
For many people the website is the first point of entry into the Archive Service and the year saw regular work to maintain its freshness and currency as well as further development work. During the year the website was restructured to make it easier for users to navigate. In addition, a set of pages describing our key collections was published.
The Archive Discovery Zone was refreshed regularly. Two featured collections appeared: The Sulyard family papers in the Stafford Collection, and George Heath, Moorland Poet. Among the individual featured documents were a letter from the Bishop of London concerning the translators of the King James Bible, 1604; programmes for meetings of the Johnson Society of Lichfield, founded in 1910; an investigation into the death of a Staffordshire soldier in Florida in 1762; account books for a tape-weaving business in Yoxall, 1820s; and the portfolio of plans and elevations of Trentham Hall by Sir Charles Barry, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his death.
Staffordshire Name Indexes Online
Last year we reported on the launch of the Staffordshire Name Indexes website, which has proved to be very popular with researchers. During the year we expanded the site by the addition of two new indexes. The first is the Workhouse admission and discharge registers, 1837-1900, containing 99,000 index entries. This index was compiled by volunteers.
The second is an index to copyhold tenants of the manor of Newcastle under Lyme, 1700-1832. The manor covered an extensive area, including Penkhull and Boothen, Hanley, Burslem and Longton. This index was donated by Peter Roden, an historian of the pottery industry in north Staffordshire.
Gateway to the Past Online Catalogue
A total of 9,308 new catalogue entries were added to the online database as a result of the cataloguing of newly acquired accessions, back-cataloguing work and the electronic conversion of legacy catalogues. Work also continued on making the catalogues easier to search by the public, by the addition of 11,472 data elements to existing catalogue entries and 892 "name authority records" (mini-biographies), mainly for nationally and locally significant people, and for authors on local history.
Use of the Website and other Archive Service Content Sites in 2010/2011
Online Use 2010-2011
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Visitor Sessions
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Main Archive Service Web Site
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74,766
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Online catalogue
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50,000
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Staffordshire Name Indexes
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14,714
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Staffordshire Places
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12,658
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Staffordshire Views
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5,113
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Sutherland Papers
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3,459
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Learning with Archives
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687
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Online exhibitions
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3,417
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