Irish inheritance

The newly released Strategic Plan for the future of the National Library of Ireland is a signal of hope to those with a few Irish genes, especially because of the promise of connection [NLI Strategy 2016-2021 connect, p.9]. It's breathtaking to realise that the NLI has been in existence only since 1877, long after so many of its population left the country with their life stories, going as far as possible around the planet to Australia and other challenges.

Those of us descended from the green and wet still feel a genetic attachment, through a particular way of looking at the world, laconic conversation, a dry sense of humour, and a laid-back approach to the stress arising from hardship. But it has also given us a determination to find out more about those origins, and see the small patch of earth where our families once lived.

Find My Past Ireland

So it was on one such adventure earlier this year that I was in Dublin, traversing historical pathways. Alas the National Library was closed to all-comers over a whole long weekend. 

And Kilmainham Gaol, which had once locked my great-great-grandfather in prior to his journey to New South Wales, now locked his great-great-granddaughter out. I am sure he would have at least noted the irony, although he might have been puzzled by the interest.

Perhaps both lock-outs, due to the one-hundredth anniversary commemorations of the 1916 Uprising, could be justified, but until the digitisation promoted by the NLI is a complete substitute, it remains a compromise. 

Indeed the only heritage agency to create a different experience was the Cork City and County Archives. Archivist Brian McGee, despite having a heavily scheduled day, went out of his way to share his knowledge not only to satisfy the curiosity of a very small number of the Irish diaspora but also, as he explained, to make up for the transgression of past data destruction, including over four censuses and in the Uprising's final devastating outcomes in 1922.

Access to original holdings such as workhouse registers helped to fill in the as-yet-undigitised gaps, but Brian noted they too would be put online as soon as resources became available. A different kind of hardship not envisaged in the nineteenth century, but nevertheless one which has led to stress. 

Would it lead to less travel? Probably not. Such a professional approach to what in the past has been perceived as superficial requests by many such agencies, including Australian ones, is likely to encourage more.

His colleagues were also only too happy to facilitate further discovery - when asked about a particular surname, the assistant said "just go outside, throw a stick and you'll hit one". Luckily we didn't have to resort to that technique. 

But the Corcaigh approach was infectious, as having sent us on successfully to Dunmanway, the local public library, historical society, and the administrator at the oldest Church there - St Patrick's, which echoed with the surnames of nineteenth century Victoria - provided useful leads for two more of our Irish families.

How to be beguiled by a library

Sometimes a story lies hidden, just waiting for discovery. How fortunate we are to be able to solve a mystery in real time, when we start chasing such a story of a life lived publicly, albeit more than a century ago. A Terranora pioneer, Frederic John Davey, moved from Cornwall via Auckland to the Tweed River in the 1870s in an attempt to improve his health.

He was well-known on the Tweed as an architect, a photographer, a farmer, a Justice of the Peace, woodcarver hobbyist and a family man. Trove shares many digitised newspaper articles detailing his life, providing a rich context for research. It should have been no surprise then that one of his obituaries mentioned a previously unknown skill - writer, of both short stories and poetry.

Davey's architectural, photographic, and woodcarving activities were documented by the Tweed Heads Historical Society. Finding his writing proved more difficult, because his obituary* suggested that he wrote for English journals. The intriguing title of the series "Tales from the Wimbriatta" should have made the stories conspicuous in a full-text search, but Trove only revealed a duplicated obituary** (replicated from two other newspapers, now missing***). 

There was no mention of this place name elsewhere in Trove, which leaves an enticing mystery still to be solved. However, the journal title,Good Words, is mentioned. Was it necessary then to search with these two very common words? Trove arranges access to a large number of online journals in its Journals, articles, and datasets zone, and this journal is listed in both microform and digitised form. However, there is no way to search across the journal articles all at once. But an alternate pathway is at hand - a service established before Trove, also online, which can be activated with a little device available to all Australians - an individual National Library card.

Each Australian can arrange to have three - their local library card, their state or territory library card (SL), and their National Library (NL) card. They are needed to access fully digitised resources, known as eresources to encompass different databases hosted by separate publishers. Australian libraries arrange subscriptions to a subset of these databases for their communities, so while there may be some overlap in content, often there isn't. Through its access arrangements, the National Library links to many English journal offerings.

Davey home drawn by F J Davey, 1882

Once you have your NL or SL card, you can sign in and search using the word British to retrieve the British periodicals collection I and II. (Note that the first search will also list the nineteenth century digitised British newspapers collections.) Accept the licence conditions, and then follow the trail to a semi-autobiographical life as described in a home country journal, complete with posed photographs, by searching on the author's name: F J Davey. The photographs themselves are beguiling too - do they show Terranora Lakes where Davey was known to have built his home?

The actions which led to the availability of this journal online in real time reflect a true partnership of minds oriented towards community service, where the owner of the copy, the digitiser, and the reader sit on different continents. It's gratifying to know that decisions made many years ago by forward-thinking librarians in Australia and elsewhere allow us to assuage our curiosity now. 

* This obituary appeared in The Richmond River Herald & Northern Districts Advertiser.
** This obituary appeared in The Northern Star.
*** The Tweed Herald; The Tweed Times. Having complementary copies of such informative obituaries is a small miracle in its own right. F J Davey was such a high achiever that the obituaries appear in newspapers outside the area of his home town and surrounds. Trove illustrated its value yet again. 

tozza tozza

'tozza tozza' is an apt Neapolitan phrase to describe the experience of driving in the cities of Napoli and Palermo. It reflects the spurting flow of traffic in the city centres, moving bumper to bumper, or side by side like dodgem cars. Palermo adds an level of difficulty: cars moving four across, switching from one imaginary lane to another by swerving without indicators. 

Driving in a Fiat Bambino is a compounding frisson of excitement - while it's a piccolo car which can fit into any space, it can also be overwhelmed by trucks and buses and even electric scooters. You will recognise your own form of demise before it hits you. 

This is often followed by the frantic search for a car park, where a concierge will wait in the street and run ahead of your car to show you an available parking space which they then want to be paid for, even if they don't own the real estate. They are ready to throttle you if you don't pay them for something which is not theirs to sell. 

In the city and the suburbs with narrow streets, cars are parked nose to nose or nose to the kerb, and sometimes with half the car on the footpath or three deep on a pedestrian crossing. (OK, the latter only happens in Roma.) It is a creative and effective use of limited space, unless you want to drive away.

It's important to take a deep breath, because sometimes 'tozza tozza' reflects the research experience too. In the chronically under-funded archives, museums and galleries everyone is very willing to provide advice, is usually interested in speaking to someone whose first language is not English and is occasionally willing to listen to the story you have to tell. But often there is only a referral, and as you move on to the next less-likely repository in increasing circles of frustration, no result.

The research conundrum being pursued, by car and on foot, was the exact location of a street in Palermo, Via Cavallacci. It was the home of many families which lived in SetteCannoli / Brancaccio for generations. It no longer exists but neither is there a map from the 1940s which shows where it might have been. Where is the concierge when you need him?

['tozza tozza' is from the verb scontarsi.]

  

Whatever happened to Highfields?

Tweed Heads, Murwillumbah, Cudgen, and many other country towns had one - a Progress Association. But it wasn’t until last year’s discovery of a “recipe book” that the existence of the Highfields District Progress Association was rediscovered.

Highfields District Progress Association

Minute book

A simple school exercise book originally used to record the Association’s meeting minutes was turned into a scrapbook for recipes cut from newspapers and magazines, but thankfully, not all of them were glued in completely and enough of a record remains to confirm the Association’s activity.

Excerpts from the Minutes book are included in this article. They extend frm the years November 1937 to July 1940, although it is not known whether this was when the Association wound up. However, the national web service Trove provides some of the earliest information about this Association, as shown in the newspaper articles included here. [i] 

The Highfield Progress Association was initially established in 1918.[ii] There were immediate issues to contend with which, in fact, had inspired the group to form. The first problem, the road to the Bilambil-Cobaki ferry, was described in the Tweed Daily on 8 January 1918.[iii] This article also explains the intended operation of the group: residents were to meet at a private home, a membership fee of two shillings per year is to be imposed, and issues affecting all residents were to be discussed, but always with the big picture in mind: “The opening up of closer settlement is certain on these coastal slopes. There is a big piece of country – scrub and lantana jungle – within easy reach of Tweed Heads that would make good homes with an assured income, and the Highfield Progress Association is out in the interest of all to assist in the development of their own and kindred areas.”

Before the Second World War, a new advertisement appeared in the Daily News on Tuesday 12 October 1937. 

The name Highfields was well established before the second Progress Association was convened. It was the recipient of spasmodic postal services in the 1920s [iv]. It appeared in NSW Electoral Rolls from 1930 onwards. It was provided as the address for representatives on the Banana Marketing Board [v]; Highfield women formed a sewing and knitting circle during the Second World War [vi], and even the local Council used the name well beyond the 1940s [vii]...

---

The full article is included in Issue 114 of The Log Book, the journal of the Tweed Heads Historical Society, and is available for purchase. The Society provided unstinting support in the publishing of this article.

---

[i] Trove is at http://trove.nla.gov.au. It contains digitised historical newspapers including The Tweed Daily, trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/title/1007

[ii] 1918 'ROUND THE RIVERS.', Northern Star (Lismore, NSW : 1876      - 1954), 12 January, p. 2,

       http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92927171

[iii] HIGHFIELD. (1918, January 8). Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 - 1949), p.2, 

       http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article190158543

[iv] LOWER TWEED POSTAL SERVICES. (1920, April 17). Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 -     

      1949), p. 4. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article191379847

[v] BANANA MARKETING Board. (1935, July 18). Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 - 1949),  p.5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article194223485

[vi] DONATIONS BY TWEED HEADS RED CROSS BRANCH. (1940, September 18). Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 - 1949), p.5. 

        http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article192924008

[vii] TWEED SHIRE COUNCIL'S WORKS PROGRAMME. (1948, April 15). Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah,  NSW : 1914 - 1949), p. 3. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article195502491

Joined-up spending

In a previous post, The agency that will never forget you, I discussed the dilemma of closed or partially closed identity services. A year later in October 2015 one of those services, the Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, launched an open interface.

The new interface is seductive for two reasons. Firstly, unlike the old clunky website, the design is fresh, simple to use, expansive in its search options, and free. The latter then leads to the second point of seduction - it is easy to buy a B, D or M certificate and see it within minutes, sometimes seconds. That's joined-up spending - the ability to part with personal funds in a more streamlined and efficient end-to-end inquiry. 

However, this interface doesn't stick purchasing obstacles in the way either. Paying for small numbers of credits, requesting credentials before a decision to buy is made, paying for a restricted number of pageviews - all of these are evidence of mean interfaces which discourage joined-up spending. 

Although this new development has been delivered in the context of government initiatives to make doing business with government easier, it is an exemplar for genealogical services which think that throwing an overflowing content bucket over the hapless searcher is enough**.

"Joined-up" is a term that emerged early in the 21st century and spread across academic and library service delivery circles. It was and is the goal of government initiatives to make doing business with government easier. The words 'efficient and effective' have been bandied about for so long that they no longer mean much. It's exceedingly satisfying, even at the detriment of my wallet, to see a government department deliver on them regardless. 

** with the possible exception of the Free___ services FreeBMD, FreeCEN, and FreeReg currently being compiled and deployed with generous interfaces.

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.