A quick guide to the Help menu

How do I search the database? offers a guide to standard and advanced searches.

What is in the catalogue? gives an overview of the main subject areas covered by our collections.

An Introduction to Archives explains basic archival terms.

Glossary of Local Terms lists many of the local dialect names and phrases that appear in titles and descriptions throughout our collections.

"Why can’t I find the record that I want?" A note on reference codes

If you have visited the St.Helens Local History and Archives Library in the past, or viewed part of our catalogue on the National Archives’ “Access to Archives” website, you might be using our database to search for a particular collection or item. If you can’t locate a record that you are certain is in our collection, then it might be the case that you have searched for it by using an obsolete reference code.

Many of our older collections were re-catalogued prior to the launch of the database and certain changes have been made to reflect contemporary archival practice. The most notable change is that unnecessary forward slashes have been removed from reference codes. For example, the reference code for the book ‘Sir Thomas Beecham: A Centenary Tribute’ by Alan Jefferson used to be BE/B/55, but the revised reference code is BEB/55. In most cases, forward slashes in reference codes occur immediately before a number, rather than in-between letters.