The four cross-indexed parts of the database, each of which is also available separately, give researchers access to more than three million pages from the official archival series of British state papers on domestic and foreign affairs. They include:

Part 1: The Tudors: Domestic, 1509–1603

Part 2: The Tudors: Foreign, 1509–1603

Part 3: The Stuarts: Domestic, 1603–1714

Part 4: The Stuarts: Foreign, 1603–1714

Around three million pages of original documents from more than 5,900 volumes and boxes of manuscripts have been uploaded into one collection, allowing researchers for the first time to search material previously fragmented in various locations. The bulk of the documents, which were accumulated under the auspices of the State Papers office, are housed in the National Archives, the former Public Records Office. These have been integrated with State Papers now in the British Library and other sources. Gale describes State Papers Online as “re-uniting State Papers Domestic, Foreign, Borders, Scotland, and Ireland with Registers of the Privy Council in the National Archives, Kew and other State Papers now housed in the Cotton, Harley and Lansdowne collections in the British Library.” Documents on domestic affairs can now be studied along with documents that had been classed as “foreign affairs.”

In addition, more than 730,000 calendar entries (abstracts) indexing the primary source documents, which were originally published for each of the individual collection series, are now integrated in a text-searchable database, and linked to page images of the corresponding documents. The publisher indicates that some manuscripts have been included that are not calendared, particularly for the foreign affairs documents from part four (1603–1714).

Microfilm, print, and alternative digital sources

The series of state papers domestic and some of the state papers foreign have been microfilmed by the National Archives and distributed by Cengage Learning under one of its former imprints, Harvester Press. CRL has very full holdings of the various classes of papers. Some of the published calendar abstract volumes have been digitized as part of the Google Books project, and most appear to be included in the Internet Archive digitized texts. Select individual documents have been transcribed and are searchable in the British National Archives interface, with PDFs available on request. No other comprehensive online source exists for these primary source documents.

A list posted by Gale as of February 2011, indicated that thirty-two U.S. institutions, including twenty CRL member institutions, had purchased some part of the database. Of the twenty CRL members, only thirteen have purchased access to all four parts. As of September 2011, twenty-nine libraries reported holdings in WorldCat (OCLC# 367650395), which included eighteen CRL member institutions.

Timetable for release of the database

The collection was introduced in October 2008; Part 4, the final installment of this archival series, launched on June 7, 2011. The State Papers (SP) series of British official documents continues through 1782, the date of the creation of the modern Home Office and Foreign Office. The remaining content from 1714 through 1782 may be digitized in the future.