What about Trove?

Lorcan Dempsey, who seems to divine library trends before they become so, recently synthesised a post about San Francisco start-ups. 

The backstory, about moving from London to San Francisco, highlighted how living in two very different places influenced the design of many 21st applications:

Bay Area problems

That is, living here after living in London, it’s easier to see physical retail as the inefficient end-point to a logistics system, and harder to see it as a curation, discovery and demand generation system. I sometimes wonder how much that difference shapes ecommerce in the Bay Area versus New York and London.

One can also look at Amazon in this light - like Sears Roebuck before it, Amazon lets anyone anywhere buy things that you could previously only get in a big city. But that is not at all the same as letting people shop the way you do in a big city. Buying is not shopping.[http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/11/15/bay-area-problems]

Buying is not shopping. Just as searching for a known item in a very large discovery service (buying) such as Trove is not the same as browsing for an item, which may appear in a results set serendipitously (shopping) but turns out to be a perfectly reasonable immediate answer to the question. The medium for that item might be a digitised newspaper or a link to a monograph, a journal, a piece of sheet music, a film, a map or an artwork. Trove does this effortlessly and well, crossing the boundary from traditional catalogues to pool information for a wide range of Australian sources.

This is the power of Trove, its design architecture reflects the need to approach research using one or other of those finding techniques. It expedites both, but with an extra fillip - collaboration. The National Library was and is able to work closely with its close cultural neighbours to experiment with and grow discovery services, curating an unparalleled  virtual collection of Australiana. Since 2009, this has expanded from libraries, archives, galleries and museums to include historical societies and local government collections.

The virtual collection is created by sharing item descriptions, not monopolising them, and Trove supports this bi-directionally. That is, when one agency shares the descriptions (metadata) with Trove another agency can copy those descriptions, through the Trove Application Programming Interface (API), to create new virtual 'shopping' experiences.

However if technical support is not on hand to manage the terabytes of metadata available via the API, there are multiple ways to experience collaborative digital collection building through Trove:

⦁    a simple technical method to become a content partner, and in return, receive a     persistent, unique label for every item identified  
⦁    transforming existing item descriptions to help distinguish items in search results, while emphasising which agency has contributed them  
⦁    supporting virtual repatriation to overcome territorial fuzziness, where cohesive collections have been split across geographically close boundaries
⦁    influencing digitisation choice, to feature previously unavailable items
⦁    alternative websites, working on behalf of collections managed elsewhere 
⦁    volunteer mobilisation, to fill in description gaps or improve the legibility of local community newspapers
⦁    experimental platforms, built on Trove content, which help us to understand our language, our 19th and 20th century values, and our environment. 

 [Ref: 2015 Museums & Galleries Queensland conference].  
The impact for the general public and researchers is immeasurable. Trove points to items held all over Australia, when the searcher didn't even know that they needed them. And the searcher is referred to an agency, large or small, which they may not have been aware of before. The shopping experience is fulfilling for both searcher and agency.

trove.nla.gov.au

Farewell to a gracious lady

Still-life with self-portrait

Viennese artist Judy Cassab died last week, on Tuesday 3 November. She was an extraordinarily generous person, a trait which shone through her art and her life in Australia. 

trove.nla.gov.au

Trove collates a lot of detail from a range of cultural heritage services about Ms Cassab's contribution to the country which adopted her, it is easy to find her story there. Not only snapshots of her work, but her thoughts are also captured for posterity in an interview from the National Library's collection, and as part of a joint initiative with the National Gallery. 

It is inspiring to hear the soft clear voice explaining the ineluctable force which motivated her painting. 

In 1999, the National Library decided to develop a new web service, which became known as PictureAustralia. An aggregation of the digitised images from art and photographic collections around Australia, PictureAustralia exemplified the value of collaboration nationally. Using simple web technologies, the creation of virtual galleries from physically separated collections became possible.

Internal discussions then ensued to decide how best to promote and raise awareness of the service. The National Library already held some of the works of Judy Cassab including portraits. It was important to illustrate the breadth of Australia's old and new collections, and Ms Cassab's contribution was an easy choice to feature. In addition, her generosity was already well known. 

So an approach to use her self-portrait as a postcard was made. The response was instant - "please go ahead and may I have several copies to send to friends?" The Library was only too happy to oblige, and this postcard was one of the reasons for the success which PictureAustralia became.

Buried in the vaults

An elegant old building stands at 120 Kent Street, very close to Barangaroo. It houses a vault with genealogical gems that capture the early history of Sydney's major cemeteries: Camperdown, Macquarie Park, Rookwood, Waverley and South Head.

Part of Ben Hall's headstone

This history is cared for by the Society of Australian Genealogists, and its membership is open to everyone with a research interest in local and family history across New South Wales as well as Sydney's 19th century architecture.

Some of that architecture is immortalised in the design of memorials and headstones which reach for permanence.

Nambucca Heads Cemetery

There are also maps of New South Wales cemeteries and visites-de-carte supporting the life stories, tragedies in death, and moving tributes to Australians who migrated from many countries around the world captured in photographs. The range of stories is extraordinary - from Ben Hall the bushranger to Eliza Donnithorne, believed to have inspired Miss Haversham in Dickens' Great Expectations.

The Society has a long track record of service to historians and genealogists. While the stories of the cemeteries and their inhabitants are available by visiting either 120 or 379 Kent Street, a digitisation fund-raising project was recently launched to unlock the photographs of headstones and other unique content from the vault.

The record of existence of many people, once acknowledged in the now crumbling headstones and memorial vaults, will be brought back to life. It just needs your support.

Everyone's talking about Canning

Tomorrow there is an important event in Western Australia, a by-election in Canning. But this federal government seat is not named for the other place of challenge known as the Canning Stock Route. 

The Australian Geographic Book of The Canning Stock Route, p.10

Described as the most isolated four wheel drive (4WD) track in the southern hemisphere, the Canning Stock Route has inspired people from around the world to indulge in isolation, break time barriers and marvel at the sheer range of flora and fauna - some of it feral. It also instigated this blog.
 
But of course, it wasn't prepared for 4WD vehicles or bicycles. Originally cattle followed in the footsteps of men, horses and camels.  Over 1,700km from Billiluna to Wiluna, water was sourced and made available through more than 50 wells. While that may have been enough to sustain cattle, as the wells have fallen gradually into disrepair, humans have had to become more self-sufficient.

The Lost City of Termite Mounds, 16 September 2013

Those who have the inclination can find other timeless features by searching the breakaways for indigenous rock art. More than once, I could sense a living presence in some of the caves nearby.

Breakaways near Gravity Lakes, 17 September 2013

 

Ingebong Hills, 7 September 2013

It is wonderful then to have this art wander out of the desert to places where more Australians can see it. Following on from its successful exhibition at the National Museum of Australia in 2010, Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route, it is now possible to see Kaninjaku: Stories from the Canning Stock Route in the same place (as well as online). 

And the exhibition We don't need a map, travelling much further than the CSR itself, is in the Gold Coast City Gallery at the moment. A rare opportunity to see a unique Martu experience.


 

A gallery of lost art

Original PictureAustralia home page, 2000

One of the unexpected benefits of delivering PictureAustralia was a heightened awareness of art, particularly paintings.

Although all were presented as digital miniatures, the ability to traverse a slice of time, an artistic stream, or an iconic heritage statement was seductive.

As a result, exhibitions and galleries beckoned me; before that I would never have dared to breach their portals.  PictureAustralia was hosted by the National Library for 12 years before it was absorbed into Trove. Links to Australian art and artists are easily traced.

In more recent times, I have started to create my own gallery of orphan works. I find them in secondhand shops, and choose the small ones, most of which are no more than $4. Interestingly, they are usually landscapes. It's rare to find a portrait -  perhaps it's harder to give away an image of a family member.

These paintings are usually orphaned by the family of the artist, as a quick BDM search usually reveals that the artist has died. A description of place is sometimes also attached.  It is their sense of place which attracts me to the subject matter - a low timber bridge over a country creek recreating a reminder of childhood, a clearing of pines reflecting both snow and fire in the Brindabellas, or a snapshot of "Albert" trees. 

Part of "Banana trash", R Smith

A simple view made from dried 'banana trash' is captivating in its experimentation.

Almost none of this art is 'expertly' painted, which is why it is not in gallery, museum or library collections. Many of these agencies trying to save our cultural heritage are under financial strain. 

All curators know that suitable environmental storage conditions are an essential commitment made to ratepayers. As a result collection policies appear to have become more stringent to the point of appearing ruthless. Offers of artefacts are declined, collections are downsized, agencies which are shut down and have no exit strategy for their collections tend to lose items to the nearest tip. The risk of losing the context of our 20th century life is higher, especially if the digitisation safety net has not been cast over it.

However, personal items which illustrate the desire to paint, to experiment with a natural fibre or to recreate a memory of place sometimes find their way to my outdoor gallery. The investment made 10, 20, 30 years ago is difficult to ignore. Protected from the sun, they are safe with me. At least for one more generation.

The gabion monument for Harriet Baker

A wall of trees hides a ridge punctuated by two arches, the tunnels in the Pacific Motorway at Duranbah. The tunnels are buttressed by gabions. 

This ridge edges the property where Harriet Eliza Baker died on 6 September 1901, long before her mother Letitia Halligan (in 1934) and father Nicholas John Jones (in 1918). She was 35 years old.

Pacific Motorway, Duranbah 15 May 15

Harriet Jones was a 19th Century baby - the eldest of 15 children. Born at South Arm, Grafton on 30 June 1866, she was visiting her grandmother Mary Hines (nee Halligan) at Duranbah where she met Thomas Baker. Thomas was almost 23, Harriet only 18. They eloped to Brisbane and married at All Saints Church on 2 April 1884 but returned to the Tweed River to settle at the Cudgen-Duranbah crossroads, where her father-in-law James Baker held property.

Tweed Regional Museum, https://ehive.com/account/5051/object/515716

Thomas, also a Grafton native, was a timber-getter and farmer. 


In the early 20th Century, he also managed the Duranbah Post Office from his home with the assistance of his daughters. [Source: State Records, NSW.]
 

Thomas and Harriet welcomed five daughters: Mary (Skeels), Ada (O'Loughlin), Florence (Philp), Irene (Cameron) and Ida (Campbell).

Harriet's youngest daughter, Ida Alice Maud (1894-1983), recalled herself and her sisters sitting in front of their mother on a horse. The dairy was in a steep gully and the children had to keep the crows out of 
the corn. Ida was only seven when her mother died after a three-week fight against influenza.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article121379493

Duranbah has never had a cemetery. Harriet was buried near the Baker family property, surrounded by a low white picket fence. In the 1950s, the land was subsumed into a quarry. Although a search was carried out on behalf of the Tweed Shire Council, there was no substantial presence to exhume and reinter. 

Lone Graves Register, Tweed Heads Historical Society

In an interesting twist of fate, Harriet's father-in-law had been subjected to the same spiritual relocation. His second resting place was subsequently washed away in a Murwillumbah flood.                          

H.E.B. 5 September 1901

Her last-minute will and testament shows where her priorities lay, but no photographs or possessions of Harriet are known to exist. How difficult then to illustrate a life. 

While the monolithic Wollumbin provides the backdrop to this truncated life on the land, Harriet's gravestone will always be the gabion monument.

Wollumbin from Tomewin Mountain Road, 21 May 2015

 

ANZAC Bruce Wilkins Campbell

At the Australian War Memorial, shining on the dome above the ramparts
photograph by great-grandniece, Dian Gargano 23 April 2018 at 18.54

I have only mustered the courage twice to visit my great-uncle's grave at Brookwood Military Cemetery near London. The endless rows of ended life are daunting despite the ceaseless care bestowed on these Australian sons. 

Bruce and Sid, 1916

It's possible that in 1985 I was the first family member to visit him, almost 70 years after his death, although his brother Sid did attend the funeral for Bruce Wilkins Campbell in this same eerie, peaceful place.

Bruce was the youngest and 13th child of his father William Campbell; the 10th child and 7th son of his mother Rebecca Mary Wilkins. He was 19 years old when he enlisted for service with his brothers Charles Douglas (Chad), Sidney Frederick and Henry John (Harry).

Soldier #4747

They took the train to Brisbane to register for the 9th Battalion, Queensland's first.  Eldest brother Charles was discharged before departure. After serving in France from 1916, only Harry and Sid returned home. 

Original Brookwood Cemetery 
photograph, 1917

Bruce was wounded in action on 6 May 1917 during the second battle at Bullecourt. He was paralysed by gunfire and shipped to the National Hospital in London, where he died a month later.

Thy Will Be Done

The family's devastation is recorded in two places - Port Macquarie, near to Rollands Plains where Bruce was born in 1896 - and Tweed Heads, the border town from which Bruce and his brothers caught the train to Brisbane. 

The Port Macquarie Library has commemorated the service of its town's sons by reaffirming the dedicated World War I Memorial. 'The Memorial was built by public subscription and was officially unveiled in April 1921. Atop the memorial sits a world globe bearing the words "They Crossed the Ocean". 

At Port Macquarie

The associated website commemorates the people behind those names. It is not intended, nor does it claim, to be a definitive biographical source. The information has been researched using publicly available information sources and, in some cases, information contributed by relatives. The scope of the website is strictly limited to the names on the Port Macquarie War Memorial.'

For the Campbell family and its most courageous son, this is a deeply moving tribute and recognition of painful contribution. 

The altar, Presbyterian Church

Presbyterian Church, Tweed Heads

In a time when large families were common, it was usual practice for names to be inherited down the generations. Two generations passed before his mother and sisters would allow a great-grandson to be named for this dutiful young man.