Researching with Trove – Improve your Trove skills

State Library of Queensland are conducting a series of three workshops on Trove. Each session is packed with interesting, informative and interactive material to showcase this wonderful resource, allowing discovery of its useful content. Look out for further sessions later in the year.

Improve your trove skills

Trove workshop: Improve your Trove skills, 12 April 2017

WHAT ARE TAGS, LISTS AND COMMENTS?

Lists enable you to link different items together i.e. images, books, newspaper articles. They can be used to: organise your own research, link favourite resources together or create lists which you think can be helpful or useful for other people.

Comments are added by Trove users, and can help provide relevant information about an item such as: providing additional information about an item, adding information about related events or provide links to related items in Trove.

HOW TO SEARCH

Click on Tags  at top right of screen within Trove.

Click in the box under "Containing", type in a word. Wait to see what tags come up. When you click on a particular tag you will see all items that have the same tag.

Tags search box, trove.nla.gov.au/tag

Lists

Lists can be created both publicly and privately. Only public lists can be searched.

Publicly available lists can be accessed in two ways:

• Through the Lists tile on Trove home page . Click on the text Click here to view all lists available
• Or enter your keywords into the search box to locate a list then click on the Lists tab.

CREATING AND ADDING TAGS, LISTS AND COMMENTS

Books / Journals, articles and data sets / Pictures, photos, objects

Located at the bottom of an item's page under User Activity.

• Click on Add a tag next to Tags, Lists or Comments to open the box to add your text.
• With lists you can tick in box to add to an already created list or click in the box to make a new list, and name your list (Public – anyone can see, Private – only you can see when you’re logged in).

Digitised newspapers / Government gazettes

Located to the left of the original text or digitised image.

• Click on World icon to view all "Tags, Lists & Comments"
• Click on Tag icon to see just "Tags" then click on Add to open text box to add tag. Click on Save.
• Click on List icon to see just "Lists". Click on Add to open text box. Select existing list or create a new list by clicking on “+”and type in new name. Click on Save.
• Click on Comments icon to see just "Comments". Click on Add to open text box to add a comment. Click on Save.

TEXT CORRECTIONS

• Only available with the Digitised newspapers and Government gazettes sections.
• Help improve the accuracy in searches of the newspapers and gazettes.
• Provide better transcription printouts of an article’s text.
• Transcription appears to the left of the original document, and should match the text as originally published.

• Where words are misspelled, correct spelling should be added as a comment. This is to ensure that the transcription reflects the spelling of the time.
• Exceptions include M’ becoming Mc; obviously missing letters, minor errors where the same word has been spelt correctly elsewhere in the article.
• Punctuation and capitalisation as it appears in the original, including hyphens.
• Text can be added or removed using the +/- tool.
• A selected set of Special Characters can be added using the "Insert Symbol" menu e.g. adding £ symbol

EXTRA HINTS

• A person does not have to be logged in to add a tag or comment.
• You can only delete a tag, list or comment that you have created, if you were logged in at the time of its creation.
• Be consistent with a tag by copying a tag you wish to repeat and paste it where next required.
• To view tags, lists, comments, and text corrections you have created, login and click on your Username when it appears at the top right corner of the screen.

MORE INFORMATION:

Tags – Trove http://trove.nla.gov.au/tag

Lists – Trove http://trove.nla.gov.au/list/result

Trove help centre – creating and contributing – adding tags and comments http://help.nla.gov.au/trove/using-trove/creating-contributing/adding-tags-comments

Trove help centre – creating and contributing – creating lists http://help.nla.gov.au/trove/using-trove/creating-contributing/lists

Trove help centre – text correction guidelines http://help.nla.gov.au/trove/digitised-newspapers/text-correction-guidelines

Kirsten Perris
Library technician, Visitor Experience