The online catalogue contains over 2 million entries. The vast majority of entries relate to departmental records, modern court records and testamentary material. All files transferred from government departments in recent years are listed to the International Standard of Archival Description (ISAD G), and are uploaded to the online catalogue once editing is completed. We have also been working hard to update and standardise many older catalogues to include them in the online catalogue. This work is extremely time consuming and labour intensive, however.
In general, it is necessary to consult traditional hard copy catalogues to older 19th and early 20th century material held in the National Archives. This may include material transferred prior to the introduction of the online catalogue, including some early departmental records and public bodies such as the Ordnance Survey, Valuation Office and the Office of Public Works, older court records, some archives of the Commissioners of National Education and the vast majority of private and business collections.