The April release of Trove resulted in users with some older devices being unable to access Trove. “Trove is unable to load. Refresh to try again or check your browser version.” (screenshot)

In correspondence with Trove support it was clear it was unintended, unnoticed, unbelieved and untroubled. I don’t expect it to be fixed. Accessibility reduced.

National Cultural Policy: "The Government will continue to support our National Collecting Institutions to provide broad public access to their collections, including support for digitisation."

#ReviewTrove #TroveAu #NationalLibraryAU #NLAgovAU #FundTrove

"The Government will continue to support our National Collecting Institutions to provide broad public access to their collections, including support for digitisation."

https://www.arts.gov.au/what-we-do/national-cultural-policy

Of relevance to:
#FundTrove #NationalLibraryAU #ReviewTrove #TroveAU

OPINION

I joined 2016’s #FundTrove promoted by @wragge. That organic campaign has now been appropriated by the library & history sectors and industrialised. They lead the convoy with NLA happy in the back seat. They want people outraged and echo-y.

There have been convenient press errors uncorrected, a “leaked” report, dodgy figures, official figures avoided and ambit claims for buckets of taxpayer money to fix what NLA broke and then some. To build a “world-leading platform“. (Trove once *was* world leading.)

But don’t expect to read dissent from within the industry - jobs and grants make that hard.

It’s labelled a funding crisis. Yeah nah. Political realism tells us Trove funding will be ongoing.

Trove was great but was badly diminished by the 2020 release and then further last April. Deep cracks are papered over with nostalgia “engagement”.

The sense I had in 2016 of an inspired, diligent, service-oriented leadership is gone. The leadership now seems imperial.

After 12 to 14 years of Trove, it’s time for an *external* review. The NLA-Trove conglomerate ought not to investigate itself.

I’ll be muting the hashtag now - one of the joys of Mastodon. I’ll be getting on with my project, now in its 7th year, which relies on Trove newspapers. No irony. It’s why Trove is more important than any of its transitory stewards.

#ReviewTrove #TroveAu #NationalLibraryAU

18 months into "new Trove" I asked NLA what performance figures it had. I also asked for some pretty standard figures. The request has sat in someone's pending tray for a year.
#TroveAU #NationalLibraryAU #ReviewTrove

Image shows screenshot of Trove support request, asking:
1. What statistics does Trove collect in time series that would inform about how well Trove10 is perfoming for end users compared to its predecessor? (e.g., searches, response time, number of sessions, session duration, new lists).
2. Would you share statistics on how many Trove searches are performed (non API) - say by month from Jan 2019 to the present?
3. Would you share statistics on Trove search response time (non API) - say by month from Jan 2019 to the present?

@bestqualitycrab @mikejones

Your article still has Trove usage figures badly wrong. It’s not “more than 22 million” sessions annually. This metric is available in NLA annual reports and could have easily been fact checked. Released late October by NLA the latest figure is 12.6 million - a 50% crash in 2 years since the release of “new Trove”. But no comment from NLA.

I have no doubt political realism will see Trove further funded. What we also need is a review into NLA’s recent management of Trove.

I give actual usage figures and graphs in earlier posts.

#TroveAU #NationalLibraryAU #ReviewTrove

When departments want increased funding they discuss it with the government. When cultural institutions want greater funding we see a rolling campaign targeting the general public, generating indignation, manipulating public sentiment.

Ignore those trying to pull your Trove heart strings. Don’t worry about Trove over Christmas. It will get funded. Political realism is the Government will continue to do so (to some extent).

#ReviewTrove #FundTrove #SaveTrove #TroveAU #NationalLibraryAU #Trove

Imagine if you could get up to 25 years pay all at once!

That’s what NLA wants - up to “$100 million could make Trove a world-leading platform“ (source: “internal library document” quoted by SMH/Age).

But hang on a moment, wasn’t Trove already world leading and famous?

Yes! “Trove received the 2011 ‘Excellence in eGovernment’ Award as the most outstanding government IT initiative across federal, state and local government from 62 nominations. Trove also won the award for the best initiative in the Service Delivery Category.” (Annual Report) At the time Trove was funded by NLA itself.

What subsequently tarnished Trove’s reputation was the botched 2020 release and the NLA-Trove conglomerate’s ongoing “nothing to see here”approach.

Trove will be funded. That’s just political realism. But we badly need an external review of Trove. Not ever increasing buckets of money.

#ReviewTrove #FundTrove #SaveTrove #TroveAU #NationalLibraryAU #Trove

Let’s be political realists (and stop worrying).

The government is never going to stop Trove funding.

This is an ambit claim for greatly increased funding for NLA by the library and history industries, hoodwinking average family historian and genealogist tax payers.

What they don’t want you to know is that Trove access has
crashed 50% in 2 years with not even a word from the NLA-Trove conglomerate.

That’s why we need an external review of Trove. Not ever increasing buckets of money.

#ReviewTrove #SaveTrove #FundTrove #TroveAU #NationalLibraryAU #Trove

Chart (image): Trove visits / sessions (millions)
Data:
2017 - 22.23
2018 - 27.45
2019 - 28.3
2020 - 25.32
2021 - 17.9
2022 - 12.6