Hello.

Our Library is organised using ACCESS for our database.  We also use EXCEL when relevant.  Conscious that some of you might not have these programmes on your computer, we have decided to fragment the database into individual files by converting them into manageable HTML files which you can open as web pages. 

The database is split several ways, but the main components are ROYAL NAVY [with other navies attached] and COMMERCIAL. 

The first section covers the ROYAL NAVY documents we hold, which quite literally has books on cookery, laundry, physical training, seamanship, FAA, submarines etc, but the bulk covers the OPS ROOM Branches of Gunnery, TAS, Radar, W/T and Navigation, so a good search is in order.  Take for example your need to search for documentation concerning a 618 Transmitter.  You will have to search for either 618, The 618, A 618, Outfit 618, Type 618, 618/CAS [with its variants] and a few other titles also, so be patient.

We start with the NAVY side of the database, and whilst we don't show you everything, we show over 7000 lines of information in this section alone. The numbers underneath each entry below are the ACCESS lines of the data base after conversion and divorce from other sections.

Get a feel for the search you are about to do by doing a mental calculation of the number of searches in each box.  Box one, the MIXED BAG, will search 686 individual titles whilst box four, Letter C and the largest, will search 782 entries:  the last box, Letters X/Y and Z is the smallest at 26 entries.

We have an extensive Commercial database also.  In this database there are many references to the Royal Navy, its equipment and its personnel but all published in the public domain by many types of authors.  Some of these are Defence Manufacturing Companies or Commercial Companies hoping to sell their equipment to the MOD, whilst others are published by ex-service people or academics studying specific parts of the "war machine".  We use these to cross-reference [often seeking more detail than is published in MOD Books - BR's etc] and sometimes these commercial documents are the only information we have on a given subject.  Here are another 4500 entries, and again, only a part of our collection albeit the major part.  Some titles/subjects could [or should] belong to the NAVAL section, but remember, when a Type 696 for example, is designed and built by a Commercial Company, that company publishes it own handbook and data-sheets, and it is not until it is accepted into the Service that a BR will be written for the equipment.  There are many articles on personnel or personnel matters in this database.  Remember also that our only income is to refurbish/rebuild 'old' equipments [many of them commercial] to sell on to devotees of bygone days.  Our commercial database, much of which you will be bored by, comes in handy for the restorers.

Next come the books/documents of other than the two tables above, a further 379 entries.

Finally the mis-musters: those books and documents {NAVAL and COMMERCIAL} missed out of the fragmentation processes for various reasons and produced here in the following file - CLICK HERE for an additional 88 entries

All in all, as shown, a total of 12,029 entries.

We also have the definitive collection of SEASLUG documentation.  Click here  for full details.