If you only want to watch the videos that are available on-line, simply tick the "Only return results with online recordings" button and click "Search the archive". Click on the picture links to view the available videos. More videos will be added as we continue to work on the archive.

If you want to find out what other material is available to view in the Museum, you should insert search criteria and/or select from the drop-down lists. The more information you specify, the more the results will be filtered and the fewer results produced. Entering no criteria at all and clicking 'Start Search' will result in all records being listed. This is not recommended unless you have a fast computer and internet connection!

The archive can be searched as follows:

SUBJECT:
The Subject words refer to either (i) the topics discussed by interviewees in their interviews; or (ii) the setting or visual content of the recordings. To search for a subject, simply tick the appropriate box. All searches work in an additive way, so specifying two or more subjects will produce only those records matching ALL of the subjects (i.e. ticking 'Birds' and 'Farming' will return records where both subjects are relevant but won't return records where only 'Birds' is relevant, for instance).

KEYWORD:
You can enter anything in the Keyword box and you will return records that contain any mention of your keyword, irrespective of where that word appears in the record. This type of search is useful if what you are looking for is not in the Subject list.

FORMAT:
The archive contains a range of different recordings. These include Video Interviews (these are recordings of conversations with local people); Performance (typically recordings of the Theatre Club or the Scillonian Entertainers); Landscape (views of local areas and events); Artefacts (videos of photographs or other historical artefacts) and Silent film (views of local areas or events).

SOURCE:
The material in the archive comes from a number of sources and you may wish to use this search if you are interested in recordings of a particular provenance. Currently, it is possible to search for the following sources: Karodema Productions (recordings made by Roger Banfield of the Isles of Scilly in the 1990s and the 2000s; these recordings include edited interviews and recordings of local events); Mary Bushell (recordings made by an Isles of Scilly Museum volunteer in the 1990s and the 2000s; these include interviews, landscapes and local events); Private Donation (landscape or event recordings donated by members of the public); and TV programmes.

SPEAKER:
The Speaker search can be used if you are looking for someone from Scilly who may have been interviewed for the archive. To use this search function, you already need to know the name you are looking for (for instance, if you are researching your family tree, you may want to find out if any of your relatives are represented in the archive). The best way to search is by full name (first name and surname), but the search looks for everything that you enter, so a surname or, even just a first name, can return records.

YEAR RECORDED:
This function searches for matches on the year so if you enter '1993' you will restrict the results to 1993 only. If you enter '199', for instance, your search will return all records from the 1990s. The dates of some recordings are unknown. These are dated 0000.

Finally, the "Sort by" button allows you to choose whether the records returned by your search are sorted according to 'Subject', 'Year recorded' or 'Speaker'.