Searching the catalogue

Each collection has several levels of information each of which have appropriate information. If you wish to find out about the general contents and context of a collection, search for the collection using title or finding reference, then selection ‘Collection’ from the drop down box next to ‘Level’.

Once you have identified a record that is of interest to you, selecting the finding reference number e.g. SxMOA1/3/12/5 will take you to a ‘collection browser’ page. This is a map of the collection, allowing you to browse through other categories that may be of interest to you and showing you the context of the particular record that you are interested in.

When ordering material, you will need to give staff the finding reference number e.g. SxMOA1/3/12/5.

If your search returns many results, you may wish to order them to make it easier to go through. Clicking on the ‘Level’ heading column will re-arrange your results so that any they can be ordered with collection descriptions first through to item descriptions last or vice versa. You may find this useful if you are looking for general collection information rather than specific items.

How to search for items in the Mass Observation Archive

If you need to search within the Mass Observation Archive only, you will need to limit your searches by typing the following reference numbers into the ‘Finding Reference’ box:

SxMOA1/* - to search within the archive of the original Mass Observation organisation
SxMOA2/* - to search within the papers of the Mass Observation Project

SxMOA* - to search within ANY of the Mass Observation collections, including personal collections of diaries and correspondence.