Call to action: Save Trove

What is Trove?

Trove is an innovative and transformative digital platform, created by the National Library of Australia, that is a free gateway into Australia’s vast cultural collections.

  • Trove has created the most significant collection of Australian stories and cultural heritage with over 6 billion items including thousands of digitised newspapers.

  • Trove is one of Australia’s top 15 global internet domains accessed by all sorts of researchers from historians and academics, to journalists and writers, students and teachers as well as members of the wider general public in Australia and beyond.

  • Trove’s platform enables many cultural institutions (over 900 to date) to make their collections freely accessible to a global audience.

  • As a historical tool, Trove is unique on a global scale, setting a high international standard amongst cultural institutions.

  • Trove, which is free of charge for users and accessible to all, has democratised the past, providing a means for all to engage and connect with the social, historical, and cultural material that reflects who we are.

  • The accessibility of Trove has far reaching implications that stretch beyond historians to our wider community.

What is the issue?

The National Library of Australia (NLA) only has funding for Trove through to July 2023. Without further funding, NLA will no longer be able to maintain Trove and the service that we have come to rely on will cease. This will be a catastrophic loss that will have immeasurable consequences, significantly impacting not only how we research and engage with our past, but also how we as Australian citizens and residents will come to understand our present communities, people, and nation.

What can we do?

Over the next few months, it is crucial that we continue to remind the federal government of the critical nature of services like Trove and institutions like the National Library of Australia, not only to professional historians, but also to the wider Australian public.

Professional Historians Australia has published statement and we will lobby relevant politicians to retain and enhance Trove.

We encourage all our members to:

  • sign the Change.org petition and the official e-parliament petition (closes 22 February)

  • write to your local MPs sharing your concerns and asking them to support fully funding Trove

    Resources

    Sample letter to send to your local MPs can be found here

    Read the NLA’s Trove Strategy here

    Read PHA’s statement on Trove here

Lucy Bracey