This diagram shows what you can find on The National Archives' website (red circles) and information you can find about us and our records elsewhere (white circles). More information on each aspect of what you can find online can be found below the diagram.
Information about us
Our website tells you about the work we do, how we are run and how to contact us. You can also find our current vacancies and the latest news, from new document releases to updates from the archival and information management sectors.
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National news
Making national and international headlines, the August 2009 release of our UFO files saw over 450,000 file downloads in the first two days of release.
Descriptions of records
Descriptions of the records we hold can be found in our online Catalogue. We had 2,472,438 online visits to our Catalogue in 2008-09.
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Records digitised by us
Currently we have 7,867,755 document images available via our website, but this is only a very small proportion of the records we hold. Over 170 documents were downloaded for every one original document seen by a visitor in 2007-08.
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Records digitised by our partners
Some of our records, such as the census, First World War soldiers' records and passenger lists, are made available online by partner organisations. The 1911 census, launched in partnership with findmypast.co.uk, was so popular that 11 million searches were made in the first week.
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Descriptions of records in other archives
You can find indexes on our website to other archives' collections, such as the Manorial Documents Register and the Hospital Records database.
Online shopping
You can visit our bookshop, access a selection of images from the 50,000 in our collection and order copies of documents - all online!
Advice and guidance
We offer advice to the public and to institutions on the records we hold and on many aspects of records and information management.
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Advice on using records
We have innovative resources in the form of guides, tutorials and online wizards, to help you find the records you need.
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User contributions
The National Archives' wiki, Your Archives, enables you to contribute your own articles about archival sources.
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Social networking
Users can share information and feedback through Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter.
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Web archive
In the UK Government Web Archive, powered by European Archive, you can find archived pages from government websites from the last ten years.
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Freedom of Information
We processed 1,999 Freedom of Information (FoI) requests in 2008-09, and we offer online guidance on FOI.
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Information management
There are 4,000 knowledge and information professionals in government; our chief executive is Head of Profession.
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Conservation
Through collection care and digital preservation, we ensure that public records are preserved for present and future access.
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Archives development
We give advice and guidance to archivists, records managers and private owners of records and promote best practice for the archives sector.
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Records management
We advise 250 government departments on how best to manage their records. This includes guidance on the preservation of digital records.
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Educational resources
Our award-winning education service brings history to life through taught sessions and innovative online resources. In 2008-09, 5,515 school pupils took part in our interactive online tutorials.
Legislation
The National Archives has responsibility for the publication of legislation and the management of Crown copyright.
Advice on re-using information
We promote the re-use of public sector information and regulate the information-trading activities of organisations that create and collect public sector information.
