A simple search is quick and easy using the Trove API but these are often too broad to provide the information we need. Any insights to be made are lost in the sludge of irrelevant results. In this post I will explain how to narrow the search down so that you can close in on the data that is more helpful for your research. If you have not used the Trove API before and need to learn how to do a simple search using this tool you should first read ‘An Introduction to the Trove API’.
Trove is a huge database of information contributed by over two thousand libraries in Australia as well as other organisations. It is an ever increasing data mine. Today the Trove website says that it holds 389,961,760 items. The Trove API gives access to items in several zones: book, picture, article, music, map, collection, newspaper, list. This series of posts focuses on the article zone which allows access to digitised newspapers.
This post is designed to be used as a reference when you need to find answers for particular types of searches that you are most likely to be conducting. Keep in mind that there is a lot more that you can do in the newspaper zone via the Trove API, and that there is also a large amount of data to explore in the other zones. If the answer to your question is not here then you should consult the Trove API Technical Guide. The other essential document you will need to consult regularly is the URL Encoding Reference so you can translate non-ASCII characters into a code that will be recognised on the Web. Continue reading