When there was talk a year or so ago of the Australian Government de-funding Trove, I could hardly believe it was a real discussion. Losing Trove – or even seeing Trove prevented from continuing to grow – would be a tragedy. Trove is a national treasure of the first rank. It’s a digital portal – administered by the National Library of Australia – that gives access to historical newspapers, to magazines and gazettes, to photographs and to all sorts of other material. As a research tool for journalists, writers, genealogists and historians its value is beyond description.
Before Trove, much of the information it makes available had to be sought by physically attending a library and hunting through mountains of paper, or microfilm. Much of what’s available on Trove was – in practical terms – unavailable to most people in years gone by. Trove represents a great democratisation of information.
Incredibly, Trove is only 15 years old, having launched in December 2009. At that time the library staff who conceived the idea saw it “as a way to bring together collections of wonderful things” including such diverse services as the Australian Bibliographic Network, (later Libraries Australia), Pandora – the National Library’s web archiving service, RAAM – the Register of Australian Manuscripts, Picture Australia, Australian Dancing, Music Australia. the ARROW Discovery Service, People Australia and The Australian Newspapers Beta Service.
To quote from the Trove site itself:
Trove’s first name was the Single Business Discovery Service (catchy, isn’t it?). Perhaps due to this name not exactly rolling off the tongue, staff briefly bestowed the nickname Girt. As in, “our home is girt by sea”…
Shortly before the launch in December 2009, the name Trove was suggested by a clever Library staff member. It brought to mind a treasure trove, as well as the French verb trouver meaning “to discover”, and was immediately popular.
Speaking purely of newspapers on Trove, the site’s presentation is marvellous, offering full-page views of many thousands of issues of all manner of local and national publications, along with text transcriptions. These transcriptions, often admittedly a bit shaky due to the quality of the images they are derived from, can be corrected by civic-minded users who are referred to as “voluntroves”.
Researching your family history? Type an ancestor’s name into the Trove newspaper search bar and see what skeletons come tumbling out of the closet. Want to get contemporaneous commentary about some event in your local area? Go to Trove. Or, if you want to research an obscure photograph – as I often do – give Trove a go.
Unfortunately Trove’s newspaper resources cut off at 1955, the point at which copyright issues become a little tortuous, I suppose. If you want to spend some money you can roll the dice and buy a subscription to newspapers.com or other similar site that includes more recent issues in its inventory. But for pre-1955 Australian material, Trove is the number one choice.
Since I’ve been collecting interesting old photos and ephemera, I’ve often turned to Trove for help and, provided I’ve got at least some clues to start with, it often turns up trumps. Here are some recent examples of success that you might find interesting.
Oh no, not blackface! What’s going on?

I had a head-start on this one because I knew the photographer was a man named Bevis Platt and I knew that at one time he had lived at East Maitland. So by typing into Trove the search terms “Miss Homard”, “East Maitland” and “Crows”, I hit paydirt almost immediately . . .

“Popular lady” competitions – bizarre as it sounds today – were common fund-raising events. In this case, Mrs Thompson beat Miss Homard, winning the East Maitland Community Chest. You can find the report of the announcement, at East Maitland Literary Institute Hall, on Trove here. Community Chests (a familar term if you have played Monopoly) were pooled charity funds to support local causes. The concept began in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1913, and spread around the world.
More dress-ups. But where and why?

I found this photo in an antique shop in the Blue Mountains. It had no identifying information other than a note on the back saying that the man dressed as Chidley (with the beard and bag) was a fellow called Bill. I knew a bit about William Chidley, a very odd character who used to advocate a variety of ideas, including that men should wear light dresses in warm weather and have sex without erections. He used to sell copies of a little pamphlet titled The Answer and the police routinely gave him a hard time.
By using search terms relating to Chidley and wartime processions I found the photo related to the Belgium Day procession at Lithgow, NSW, on May 2, 1915. Chidley would have been fresh in the minds of the citizens of Lithgow, since he visited the town in March 1914 to give a lecture on health, diet and clothing.
A funeral, but whose?

This press photo was labelled with the date and suburb: Adamstown, February 1934. The first step in finding out more was to search Trove’s digital copies of The Newcastle Herald from February 1, 1934. And, remarkably, that very paper yielded the information that the Member for Hamilton, decorated Great War soldier Hugh Connell, had died at his Adamstown home. The following day’s paper had a report of his funeral, and the actual photo seen above accompanied the article.
Connell had played an important role in the Australian victory at the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux, in 1918. You can read of his exploits here.
A hotel, somewhere . . .

This photo was found in an antique shop in Walcha, NSW. It seemed like an Australian scene, but I had no idea where it was. Until I typed the name into Trove and scored a direct hit, with a photo from nearly the same angle identifying it as being at Mourilyan, North Queensland.
I could lengthen this post almost indefinitely with examples of the marvellous value of Trove. And I know that many, many other people could do the same. Suffice to say that Trove is beyond praise: a truly wonderful resource with immense potential. If you haven’t bookmarked Trove, you really should.