Category: Digital preservation

Exploring Trove Images

Published: Mon, 2013-02-11 16:09 by Michael Whiteway

TroveMosaic is an experimental interface for the Trove picture search. Enter a query, and it will build a mosaic from the top 500 records. Group the results by title, collection or decade for different views, and click an image to see it in its home collection.

This project is the work of Mitchell Whitelaw, part of an ongoing project creating generous interfaces for digital cultural collections. Along with the Manly Images interface, TroveMosaic was funded by the State Library of New South Wales.

TroveMosaic requires a modern, standards-compliant browser like Chrome, Safari or Firefox. It is designed for desktop browsers and probably won't work perfectly on mobile or tablet devices (yet).

Trove picture search contains over 7.3 million images on almost every conceivable subject. Hundreds of organisations contribute material including the University of Queensland Library, Queensland Department of Public Works, Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads, Geoscience Australia, Royal Geographical Society of South Australia, Australian Academy of Science, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, CSIRO, and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation.

Dying languages get digital home

Published: Thu, 2012-10-11 11:24 by Miranda Mariette

A SURF project has helped create a digital home for dying languages. The University of Leiden Library in Holland, in collaboration with the CARDS (Controlled Access to Research Data Stored Securely) project of SURF in the Netherlands, is working on a project with Roberta D'Alessandro, Professor of Italian at Leiden University, to develop a data management system to manage and share important research data on dying Italian dialects. For Roberta and her team being able to upload and share the data they have collected is a central feature of the system, simplifying collaboration and allowing other language researchers to use the material. To read the full report go to Research Information: August/September 2012

Repository of the Week: tDAR

Published: Wed, 2012-07-04 14:05 by Amy Cross

tDAR - the Digital Archaeological Record - is an international digital archive and repository. It houses data about archaeological investigations, research, resources and scholarship, to provide broad access to a wide range of archaeological data.

A key aim of tDAR is the long term preservation of digital archaeological data, as well as providing free, easy access to data for the public and researchers. The repository is designed to "enable researchers to more effectively create knowledge of the human past, and resource managers to better preserve and protect archaeological resources."

Within tDAR, users can search for documents, datasets, images, and GIS files, and make use of data integration tools. It also provides a comprehensive list of guides and resources about accessing, using and uploading to the repository, as well as a useful 'data dictionary' and video tutorials.

tDAR is government by Digital Antiquity - a non-profit, multi-institutional and collaborative organisation. Access the repository at www.tdar.org.