State Papers, France

We've been quiet on the blog recently while we've been working towards announcements that will be coming over the later spring/summer. Silence on the blog doesn't mean there isn't a lot going on - rather the reverse!

One of several projects currently in the works is SP78, the State Papers for France from the National Archives at Kew. We're hoping to have these available as part of MEMSO very soon, at which point we'll give an update on their content. In the mean time, the TNA catalogue for SP 78 can be viewed here

Additional Manuscripts from the State Papers, Foreign, & State Papers, Spain (1553-1780)

(TNA SP 70/87, f. 642r. MEMSO Permalink )

Users will already have noticed that manuscript images from the The National Archives (UK) are increasingly a key element in Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO). The first wave of a major expansion of our manuscript images was launched on Friday, 4 July, with the availibility of TNA SP 70, The State Papers, Foreign, Elizabeth I (1558-1577) (part I of II, with the remaining MSS appearing in August), and SP 94, State Papers, Foreign, Spain (1577-1780).


The manuscripts are arranged for ease of use and access in high definition greyscale images, and we will be adding further metadata and links between printed books and manuscripts over the coming weeks. However, of particular interest to many users will be the fact that most of the new images from the State Papers, Spain, are absent from the printed volumes of Calendars of State Papers, Spain, and Calendars of State Papers, Foreign.

MEMSO 2.7 - More simple to use, more manuscripts

Less than two months after launching MEMSO 2.6, last night we launched MEMSO 2.7, which includes the latest incremental updates to the user interface. This time around we have been concentrating on simplifying the user interface in a number of important ways, while maintaining or improving functionality.

We believe new users will find this the simplest version of MEMSO to use so far, enabling them to find the material they are interested in more quickly.

At the same time we have made accessing the manuscript images from the State Papers at the UK National Archives more central to the resource in preparation for major additions to the manuscript content over the next few weeks. Comprehensive coverage of the State Papers, Elizabeth, Spain and France are on the way between the next few days and the end of the summer.

If you would like to take a trial to MEMSO, please contact us and we can usually have a trial in place the same day.

MEMSO is upgraded often, and user interface improvements come along every month to two months. That's because we are constantly learning from user feedback, and because we believe web resources should never be viewed as 'finished'. Subscribers to MEMSO since 2006 have seen it develop from a highly functional but more conventional resource, into one of the most innovative historical databases available. As ever, new features are still in development ...