Trove, the National Library of Australia’s free digital library service, has grown rapidly to become an indispensable tool for undertaking historical research allowing researchers to engage with its digital resources—researching, building and creating as well as enriching them. Amongst its 560+ million resources contributed by around 800 research, cultural heritage and community organisations, are the National Library’s digital collections—digitised newspapers, journals, books, pictures, manuscripts, maps and music as well as a rapidly growing born digital collection.

This session will offer participants the opportunity to hear about and discuss the interesting and innovative ways researchers use Trove, providing a unique perspective on ‘scale’ and research strategies in history. Katherine Bode will describe how Trove enabled her to identify a host of nineteenth century Australian works and authors, creating a database of over 21,000 novels, novellas and short stories published in early Australian newspapers. Garrick Hitchcock will describe how the discovery in Trove of a forgotten Indian newspaper article from the early 19^th century may solve the mystery surrounding the fate of French explorer Jean François de Galaup, Comte de La Pérouse who disappeared in 1788. Mark Finnane will discuss how Trove has been used to investigate the history of the criminal trial in Australia by analysing patterns of crime, prosecution and punishment in Australia from 1850-1960. Helen Morgan will talk about Trove’s role in illuminating the contribution of Australian women including seven decades of Australia’s pioneer ‘trailblazing’ lawyers. There will also be the opportunity to learn more from the Trove team about Trove’s resources and the National Library of Australia’s exciting future plans for Trove.