DOWNLOADING MATERIAL FROM “TROVE”
“Trove” is the National
Library of Australia’s archival website. Most often used to study old
newspaper files, it has a range of other downloadable categories, including books.
Books can be accessed
from sources all around the world. It’s not that easy to locate what you want,
however. For a start, there are no catalogue numbers that I can list for you;
you will have to locate the books yourself. You will also find that books from
some sources are harder to download than others. In fact, I still haven’t
figured some sources out. More annoying still are those that you think you can
download until you find that you must first be a member of a certain library
group, have a password or that you can only get a text-only copy, minus
illustrations etc.
Nevertheless, it’s a
valuable resource and well worth the effort involved. Here’s how to get
started.
Click on “Books”. Now tick the “Available Online” box. You
can also tick the “Australian Content” box, though this doesn’t always help. I
only use it when confronted with hundreds (sometimes thousands) of items to
check.
We will locate a book
that was in the Parramatta High School library when I was a student there in
the 1950’s. It was the book that really piqued my interest in Geology. The full
title is “The Geology of Sydney and the Blue Mountains” by Rev J Milne
Curran.
Now
return to the web page. In the “Search” box put in what you consider are the
key words. Try just with “Geology” and “Sydney” for starters.
Don’t use the author’s name – you often won’t know it or you will likely get the
spelling wrong. Now Click on “Search”.
I came
up with a list of 5,627 books. Too many. Try adding “Blue Mountains” in
quotes. This reduces the list to 113 and this time we have hit the jackpot because
the first 4 entries are all the book we are looking for. Click on the one of
your choice. I chose the second and it took me to the Internet Archive of the
University of Toronto, where you can read details of the book.
On the far left,
click on PDF to download the file. This will take some time. It took me 7 minutes
to bring down the 422 page book. Before you start exploring the book, SAVE IT! Click on “File”, then “Save
page as” and then name and save the book wherever you want to put it. (Your
computer may well have a different way the save the file, but be sure to do it immediately
you have downloaded it.
While
this can be a frustrating process, it's worth coming to terms with it. Here are
several other books which I downloaded while preparing for this Blog. You might
try locating them!
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| Blue Mountains Gems by Harry Phillips - undated |
You
can locate an enormous amount of interesting material in Trove – photographs,
newspaper articles, magazine articles etc. I hope you enjoy exploring the
archives as much as I do.
See also my You Tube
playlist on the Blue Mountains here . I also have playlists on gem hunting/mining, Glen Innes and New Zealand.
All New England and other Geology blogs and videos
Limestone Caves of NSW
Song Studies. Bible studies based on hymns and songs
Shoalhaven District Geology.
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