TROVE: STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS 2012–2015
Trove is a national discovery service built and managed by the National Library of
Australia. Trove embodies the Library’s core objective: to ensure that all Australians can
access, enjoy and learn from a national collection that documents Australian life and
society and can access international resources of interest.
We believe that Australians—wherever they live and whatever they do—should be able
to easily discover and obtain the information they seek and to engage with rich digital
content to support their research and lifelong learning.
Trove is the Library’s primary vehicle to assist users to access digital- and physical-format
content held by collecting institutions across Australia. We will extend the content and
reach of Trove in collaboration with a wide range of collecting and research partners.
Trove is a national success story. In 2011 the service won the Australian Government’s
Excellence in eGovernment Award in recognition of its outstanding user-engagement
features. Trove has also been shortlisted in a number of international digital-library
awards and is regularly mentioned in the national and international media as a ‘treasure
trove’. In June 2012, more than 50,000 people used Trove daily.
At the same time that Trove has captured the imagination of the Australian public and
has revolutionised research in many areas, the Library faces significant challenges in
securing and maintaining resources to build the service’s content and to deliver new
service options in a fast-moving digital environment. Addressing these challenges will be
a major focus of our attention over the next three years.
Strategic Direction 1: Build Trove Content
We aspire to:
Build a national discovery service for Australian documentary heritage held in Australian
libraries, museums, art galleries, historical societies and other collecting institutions by
working collaboratively with these sectors.
Selectively add international digital content that is provided by authoritative sources and
is of interest to the Australian public.
Work with other trusted online content aggregators to acquire relevant content for Trove’s
users, and make Trove content available for re-use in other online spaces.
Engage the Australian public to build and improve Trove content.
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To achieve these aims we will:
Develop a robust Content Inclusion Policy to guide selection of content.
Continue to add digitised regional and community newspapers in partnership with
communities and benefactors.
Recognise that every cultural institution has its own strategic priorities, and concentrate
our effort on institutions which have expressed the determination to add collections to
Trove and are technically able to do so.
Provide clear and robust advice to Australian cultural institutions so they can be selfsufficient and ‘Trove-ready’ contributors.
Increase the number of Australian—and international—institutional Trove contributors,
prioritising work based on the Content Inclusion Policy.
Increase the number of individual Trove contributors and contributions to continue the
effective crowd-sourcing effort established in the service’s start-up phase.
Strategic Direction 2: Build Trove Services
We aspire to:
Harness new and emerging opportunities in the digital environment, including the
National Broadband Network, to engage with diverse Australian audiences in both major
cities and in regional or remote communities.
Support research and lifelong learning for all Australians by maximising online access to
Australian documentary collections and services.
To achieve these aims we will:
Enhance Trove interfaces so that all parts of the service are ‘mobile’ friendly, beginning
with the Australian newspaper interface.
Offer good pathways to fast, reliable and efficient document delivery services for
resources which can be discovered through Trove but have not yet been digitised.
Make it easy for educational content developers and researchers to access Trove resources
for reuse in their curriculum products and innovative research spaces.
Support and strengthen our online engagement with the Trove community through our
social media channels, including our Twitter feed and online forum.
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Continue to openly share our research, discoveries and workflow solutions so that other
cultural organisations can learn from our successes.
Strategic Direction 3: Build a Sustainable Business Model
We aspire to:
Develop a robust, sustainable business model for Trove to ensure we can expand and
enrich its content and invest in new service options for our users in a scalable way and
within available resources.
To achieve these aims we will:
Encourage capacity building—in both infrastructure and staff skills—in the Australian
cultural institution sector to reduce overheads associated with adding new content
contributors and maintaining existing contributions.
Investigate diversifying our funding source to support the addition of new content, the
development of new services and the scalable infrastructure, bandwidth and user services
required to support service growth.
Maximise returns on the Library’s investment in Trove by managing our resources
effectively.
Participate in international collaborations, with a focus on standards and practices for the
creation and exchange of data-describing collections.
Share our knowledge and innovation experiences with the Australian and international
sectors and collaborate to respond to new challenges and opportunities.
Develop the full potential of our staff to achieve our vision.
July 2012
Address and contact details
Assistant Director-General, Resource Sharing
National Library of Australia
Parkes Place, Canberra ACT 2600
Enquiries 02 6262 1111 Facsimile 02 6257 1703 nla.gov.au
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