UK National Archives chooses Autonomy to personalise 30 million records and 1000 years of British history
Autonomy Corporation plc, a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced that The National Archives of the United Kingdom has chosen Autonomy's technology to increase the accessibility of its archive, one of the largest in the world. National Archives Global Search has now gone live, allowing users to access 11 catalogues and databases covering about 30 million records from a central point on the web.
Autonomy brings intuitive search and navigation access to The National Archives' resources, increasing the accessibility of electronic documents spanning 1000 years of British history, from the Domesday Book of 1086 to the present day. Through its unrivalled scalability, Autonomy is helping expand The National Archives' reach by supporting its efforts to make its vast numbers of electronic records accessible both to the general public and to authorised on-line users. The management of electronic records is recognised as one of the vital underpinning elements in the government's modernisation programme, as the majority of government records are now produced electronically and need to be both stored securely and made accessible.
In planned future developments, Autonomy functionality - including profiling and alerting - will allow users to automatically receive, in an intuitive, user-friendly form, the content they are interested in from the vast collections of The National Archives. These features will enable users to effectively harness information stored in the ever-increasing quantities of electronic records stored by The National Archives.
Autonomy's technology automatically forms an understanding of the content of information. This conceptual and contextual understanding of the meaning of electronic data enables unrivalled data processing operations across large quantities of information, capabilities vital for leveraging the knowledge contained within large data stores such as The National Archives. Autonomy's core product, IDOL Server, can automatically extract the meaning of the information it processes, whatever the format, be it text, email, voice or video content.
David Thomas, Director of Collections and Technology at The National Archives, said: "We are thrilled to launch this new and exciting tool, which will allow users to access information about records held at The National Archives and in local record offices throughout the UK. It will be of immense value to academic historians, family historians and others who share an interest in our past."
Mike Lynch, CEO of Autonomy, commented: "We are proud to make the wealth of information held within The National Archives fully accessible and retrievable. Autonomy's unique ability to automatically form an understanding of the meaning of electronic information from huge volumes of data stored in multiple, disparate sources will benefit The National Archives' users for years to come. The announcement that we are powering such a prestigious British institution reinforces Autonomy's commitment to the public sector."
Reproduced from an article published by Autonomy
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