Coventry University Archives: How to search the archives

An online archives catalogue is available, and includes descriptions for our collections that have been catalogued. Digital images are also available for the Frederick Lanchester collection.

The catalogue, which is gradually having more information added to it, is also available on the Archives Hub and Archives Portal Europe websites.

The Frederick Lanchester collection images can be downloaded and used for specific purposes under a Creative Commons licence (see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

More information on the Lanchester Interactive Archive (LIA), the Frederick Lanchester collection, and resources for learning and outreach are available on the LIA website at http://www.lanchesterinteractive.org

Finding aids (such as typed lists, indexes, notes) are available for collections that are currently not available via the online catalogue. Reference material, including library books, are also available but have to be consulted at the University Library. Some of these can be searched for on the university’s Locate online catalogue. Please see our ‘Contacts and visiting us’ page for more information.

Help with simple and advanced searches is available on the online archive catalogue page.

A simple text search will give you the opportunity to search for a phrase, match all the words you use for a search, or match any of the words used.

A ‘search within’ option can be used if you know the reference number of a particular item, or know which section of the collection it appears in.

The advanced search can be used for very specific searches and allows you to include or exclude text in particular fields (such as title, description, reference number etc.)

We have some archive materials that have yet to be listed either on paper or digitally. Unlisted material is not usually available for research. This currently includes some of the Frederick Lanchester collection, the university’s ‘institutional’ archives, and other collections mentioned on our ‘Discover the archive collections’ home page. These items will be listed as soon as possible.

Although the archives are based in the university library there is a difference between library and archive material. Libraries mostly collect published material (secondary sources), which is normally organised by subject, and browsing and borrowing is allowed. Archives mostly collect unpublished unique material (primary sources), which can only be viewed in dedicated reading rooms and cannot be borrowed. Secondary sources in libraries can help us understand primary sources in archives.

The definition of an archive collection as used by The Society of American Archivists and The National Archives in the UK is:

"Materials created or received by a person, family or organisation, public or private, in the conduct of their affairs and preserved because of the enduring value contained in them or as evidence of the functions and responsibilities of their creator, especially those materials maintained using the principles of provenance, original order and collective control; permanent records"

Archives are organised to show who created the material (rather than by subject), so catalogues reflect this, and also put material in collections into context so you can see the links between records. This means that archive catalogues are hierarchical (and have levels).

For example the Frederick Lanchester collection is at ‘collection’ level and levels below this are ‘series’ showing the different categories of material, such as correspondence, notebooks, sketchbooks, patents, blueprints, photo albums. The ‘series’ are sub-divided further where required e.g. into ‘item’ level. The diagrams below show how the levels work.

Once the structure of a collection is created, the final reference numbers for the items in that structure can be decided upon. The reference numbers help distinguish material in different collections, and also give you an idea of where in a collection structure an item sits. So the structure for a letter in the Lanchester correspondence ‘series’ would be:

An accessible version of this hierarchy Image can be found further down this page

The image below shows how the hierarchy in the online catalogue is displayed (and how the levels can be opened and closed by clicking on the + and – signs).

• Lanchester Collection (LAN) - collection
  • Correspondence (LAN/1) - series
    • ​First item in correspondence (LAN/1/1) - item
    • Second item in correspondence (LAN/1/2) - item
    • Third item in correspondence (LAN/1/3) - item
  • Blueprints (LAN/3) - series
  • Sketchbooks (LAN/4) - Series