Trove as a platform

for digital research and creativity

Tim Sherratt ⌘ @wragge

things you need

Beyond the web interface

New possibilities for:

  • Integration
  • Creativity
  • Analysis

INTEGRATIONS

CREATIVE PROJECTS

ANALYSIS & visualisation

SOME THINGs To Make

(no coding required!)

Make your own game!

DIY TROVE exhibition

Make a Trove Twitter Bot

Big pictures

Getting data from Trove

Where's the data?

  • Metadata (collection records)
  • Search results and facets
  • Full text
  • Images

Machine-readable data

{
    "id": "153942274",
    "url": "/work/153942274",
    "troveUrl": "https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/153942274",
    "title": "Clement Wragge, 1899",
    "contributor": [
        "Nicholas, Sir Harold"
    ],
    "issued": 1899,
    "type": [
        "Photograph"
    ],
    "holdingsCount": 1,
    "versionCount": 1,
    "identifier": [
        {
            "type": "url",
            "linktype": "fulltext",
            "value": "http://hdl.handle.net/10462/deriv/134400"
        },
        {
            "type": "url",
            "linktype": "thumbnail",
            "value": "http://bishop.slq.qld.gov.au:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=185373&custom_att_2=simple_viewer"
        }
    ]
}

Machine-readable data

"facets": {
    "facet": {
        "name": "state",
        "displayname": "Place",
        "term": [
            {
                "count": "36687",
                "url": "/result?q=wragge&encoding=json&facet=state&n=0&zone=newspaper&l-state=New+South+Wales",
                "search": "New South Wales",
                "display": "New South Wales"
            },
            {
                "count": "33036",
                "url": "/result?q=wragge&encoding=json&facet=state&n=0&zone=newspaper&l-state=Queensland",
                "search": "Queensland",
                "display": "Queensland"
            },
            {
                "count": "23058",
                "url": "/result?q=wragge&encoding=json&facet=state&n=0&zone=newspaper&l-state=Victoria",
                "search": "Victoria",
                "display": "Victoria"
            },
            {
                "count": "22950",
                "url": "/result?q=wragge&encoding=json&facet=state&n=0&zone=newspaper&l-state=Tasmania",
                "search": "Tasmania",
                "display": "Tasmania"
            },
            {
                "count": "9235",
                "url": "/result?q=wragge&encoding=json&facet=state&n=0&zone=newspaper&l-state=South+Australia",
                "search": "South Australia",
                "display": "South Australia"
            },
            {
                "count": "4662",
                "url": "/result?q=wragge&encoding=json&facet=state&n=0&zone=newspaper&l-state=Western+Australia",
                "search": "Western Australia",
                "display": "Western Australia"
            },
            {
                "count": "235",
                "url": "/result?q=wragge&encoding=json&facet=state&n=0&zone=newspaper&l-state=ACT",
                "search": "ACT",
                "display": "ACT"
            },
            {
                "count": "75",
                "url": "/result?q=wragge&encoding=json&facet=state&n=0&zone=newspaper&l-state=Northern+Territory",
                "search": "Northern Territory",
                "display": "Northern Territory"
            },
            {
                "count": "70",
                "url": "/result?q=wragge&encoding=json&facet=state&n=0&zone=newspaper&l-state=National",
                "search": "National",
                "display": "National"
            },
            {
                "count": "15",
                "url": "/result?q=wragge&encoding=json&facet=state&n=0&zone=newspaper&l-state=International",
                "search": "International",
                "display": "International"
            }
        ]
    }
}

Machine-readable data

Sources of data

  • Pre-packaged datasets
  • Harvesting tools
  • The Trove API

PRE-Packaged datasets

  • Full text of digitised journals – 6.6gb from 358 different journals
  • Includes The Bulletin, Pacific Islands Monthly, Wireless Weekly, Australian Women's Mirror & many more
  • Metadata available as CSV files

PRE-Packaged datasets

  • 9,738 text files from digitised books (and ephemera)
  • And a bonus 1,513 text files from books in the Internet Archive
  • Metadata available as CSV files

PRE-Packaged datasets

PRE-Packaged datasets

PRE-Packaged datasets

Tools & Examples

THE TROVE API

  • Delivers Trove data in a machine-readable form
  • Supports new tools, new interfaces, new uses
  • Web site for humans, API for computers!
  • See Building with Trove

How does it work?

  • Request a URL, get back data

GLAM Workbench

  • Many examples of downloading and using Trove data
  • Run code live in your browser using Jupyter notebooks
  • Copy, change, hack and learn!

A possible pathway

  • Explore Trove newspaper results over time
  • Harvest newspaper metadata & text for further analysis
  • Visualise texts using Voyant
  • Instructions...

QueryPic deconstructed

Trove harvester

VOYANT TOOLs

A possible pathway

  • Explore Trove newspaper results over time
  • Harvest newspaper metadata & text for further analysis
  • Visualise texts using Voyant
  • Instructions...

MY Stuff

Trove as a platform for digital research and creativity

By Tim Sherratt

Trove as a platform for digital research and creativity

Workshop presented at the University of Canberra, 3 June 2019

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