New presentation at National Archives – 15 million new scans!

The National Archives of the Netherlands just rolled out a new presentation of their records. This new version of the website includes 15 million new scans. This presentation was already available in a beta version and is now the main presentation for all users of the National Archives website.

I am excited that this new version is now available for everyone. I have been involved with this project for one day per week, to manage the migration of the existing digital records from the old system to the new and as IT consultant for the new infrastructure.

New functionality

The presentation of archives has the following new features:

• You can filter for certain types of record: overig [other, usually regular archival documents], kaarten [maps], tekening [drawing], foto [photo], charter, etc.
• You can filter for records with digital objects, so you can limit your results to records that have been scanned or were born digital.
• You can filter for filetypes, for example to get all the PDFs.
• The finding aid shows the hierarchy and the archival descriptions side-by-side, allowing for easier navigation.
• Icons indicate whether records can be consulted online (monitor-icon), in the reading room (archival box icon), or are not available to the public (no access icon). If you click a record with a monitor-icon, the viewer will open. If you click a record with an archival box-icon, you can reserve the record for a visit in the reading room, or order scans for a fee.
• A new viewer makes it easy to navigate scans of archival records. You can zoom out to see the whole series of thumbnails and then zoom in to the part you want.

Muster rolls in the new viewer

New scans

Here is an overview of the main record groups that have new scans.

Dutch national government records:

• 1.01.02, States-General, 1576-1796
• 1.01.46, Colleges of the Admiralty, 1586-1795
• 2.01.12, Ministry of the Interior, 1796-1813
• 2.10.02, Ministry of the Colonies, 1850-1900
• 2.10.36.02, Ministry of Colonies: Public mail reports, 1901-1950

Army / wars:

• 2.13.09, Muster rolls of petty officers and soldiers of the army, 1813-1924
• 2.19.255.01, Personal files of the War Graves Foundation

Zuid-Holland [province of South Holland] and its predecessor, the province of Holland:

• 3.03.01.01, Court of Holland, 1428-1811
• 3.01.27.02, Accounting Office of the Counts and Domains of Holland, 1446-1728
• 3.06.05, Death Duties Files Zuid-Holland, 1806-1927

Asia including East Indies:

• 1.04.02, Dutch East India Company, 1602-1795
• 2.10.14, Secretary of the Dutch East Indies Government, 1944-1950
• 1.04.17, High Government of Batavia, 1602-1827
• 2.01.27.02, Council of Asian Possessions and Establishments, 1800-1806
• 1.04.21, Dutch Trading post in Japan in Hirado (1609-1641) and Deshima (1641-1860)
• 2.10.39, Transition Reports [Dutch East Indies], 1852-1962

Africa and South America:

• 1.05.01.02, Second West Indies Company, 1674-1791
• 1.05.03, Society of Suriname, 1682-1795
• 1.05.05, Society of Berbice, 1720-1795

Organizations of national importance:

• 2.20.01, Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij [Dutch Trade Society], 1824-1964

The list above only includes record groups with more than 100,000 new scans. You can download the whole list from the National Archive website (CSV).

I will be writing some blog posts over the next few months about using some of these records.

New presentation with hierarchy on the left and archival descriptions on the right

Suggestions?

If you have suggestions for improvement, you can use the Feedback function on the right side of each page in the National Archives website.

Try the new presentation