New version of TNA catalogue in beta

The latest version of Discovery (prototype) is available at

http://beta.discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk

TNA has sent the following notice about the development to the Society of Genealogists

"We have been working hard on this for many months, adding over 10 million
record descriptions previously stored in a variety of different sources
within the National Register of Archives (NRA), Access to Archives (A2A) and
the Manorial Documents Register (MDR) so that they are all now searchable
within a single online catalogue. See the Finding Archives for information:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives-sector/finding-archives.htm. 

Some things to note:
In order to add this new functionality, we have made some changes to how
searching works; you will find that the search engine behaves differently
and it may take a bit of time to get used to it. But you should be able to
find what you would have found before (and of course lots more!). If you
experience difficulties using the new search please let me know.
Use the 2 tick boxes under the main search box to quickly narrow your search
only to records held by The National Archives and / or only records
available for download.
Advanced search options have been significantly updated. For example, you
can search for a specified date or a date range in the formats yyyy, mmyyyy
or ddmmyyyy. 'Search within' has been replaced by 'Find any reference' which
enables you to search within up to 3 references (not just National Archives'
ones). You can limit your search to only closed or retained records
(currently you search for both). 'Exclude title' enables you to search for a
specified term in all catalogue fields other than the document's title (for
example it's longer 'description').
You can also use advanced search to search only for records held by The
National Archives, only for records held by (all) repositories other than
The National Archives, or only for records held by any other (named)
repository.
The latest version has a new home screen and now includes a separate
archive/repository search (ARCHON).
There is also a new image viewer which forms part of the details page where
there are images to be displayed (rather than just downloaded) - the images
are still obscured for external users and subscribers but onsite you will be
able to view the images.
We have also made further changes to the export based on your feedback.
This is beta and some features may be missing or not work fully. However,
there should be enough features and functionality for you to experience the
new service. 

Please send (via the Discovery mailbox) any comments and feedback. "