Trove and the art of desktop time-travel which could be lost with uncertain National Library funding

The Argentinian ambassador, who took up his post in Canberra in December, 2021, was reminiscing about his own father, Rafael Gowland, who had been in the very same post here in the 1980s.

"In my family, we had the recollection that there had been some article about my father in the newspaper - my father was ambassador to Canberra from '84 to '89," he said.

It was essentially a social conversation, but John-Paul Moloney wasted no time in sending Gowland straight to Trove, the glorious service provided by the National Library of Australia that has been such a boon to academics, researchers, journalists and, especially, those wanting to find out more about their own families.

"I went into my computer, and I started looking," Gowland says.

"I actually found this article, then I kept on looking and found an article about my mother, as well. Then I ultimately came across three or four actually minor articles about my maternal grandfather, who was also posted in Sydney."

His grandfather, Eduardo Echague, was consul general in Sydney between 1950 and 1953, when Gowland's mother was in her 20s.

It was before diplomatic relations were established between Australia and Argentina; an embassy would not open in Canberra until 1963. But there were still snippets here and there in the press about his mother's parents.

In the end, he says, he stayed on his computer until 3.30am, wading through decades' worth of articles about Australia, Canberra, the diplomatic corps, and the type of place his father had so loved nearly four decades ago.

In this journey, he joins the many thousands of Australians who have found themselves time-travelling through the daily lives of the country thanks to Trove.

In the 10 years since it was launched, Trove has amassed more than 6 billion digital items, including digitised newspapers and magazines, photographs, web archives, parliamentary reports and more.

It's become part of the daily life of many people, who access it everywhere from libraries and schools to their home computers and phones.

As we have learned recently, it may seem magical, and magically convenient, but its continued federal government funding is by no means assured. If Trove does not receive crucial funding for its daily operations in the next budget, it will join a lineup of things we have lost from the country's cultural institutions over the years thanks to the never-ending efficiency dividend imposed on government agencies.

It's a thought Gowland, for one, finds distressing, as he is still marvelling at the things he was able to find during his late-night desktop explorations.

"If you multiply my situation by millions and millions of situations, I think you can very clearly see the fascinating use it has as a tool," he says.

"To be able to have this window - because Google isn't the same, you know - it's like placing you back in time and actually being able to see and capture the moment in history."

The original article he had first been searching for, published in The Canberra Times on July 22, 1984, was a profile of his father Rafael Gowland, in which he spoke of the rebirth of democracy in Argentina following the end of eight years of military rule.

It was his father who was instrumental in bringing the Argentinian president, Raul Alfonsin, to the country, the first Latin-American present to visit Australia.

"It was of interest at the time because we were recovering from the military government, and we were establishing ourselves as a democratic government," Gowland says.

"And that president became very much the voice of human rights, at the beginning, in Argentina, then Latin America, and then very much became a worldwide renowned figure for the democratic process in Argentina."

Finding the article was, he says, was made bittersweet because his father died just last October.

"To actually be able to find that at the time in which we were currently sort of dismantling my father's house in Argentina - it was a whole sort of package of feelings and emotions," he says.

The preceding year had already been filled with emotions of a different kind. In his 94th year, Gowland Senior had been inordinately proud that his own son had taken the same posting he had so loved in the 1980s.

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"His last year was actually full of this fabulous emotion of seeing me being posted to the same position - it made him re-flourish or rebuild, revive in a way, because I'm actually living at the same residence," Gowland says.

Since his arrival in Canberra, Gowland has made many connections with people who worked here at the same time as his father, as well as their children and grandchildren, rekindling a strong affection for Australia that has existed in his own family for three generations.

And being able to get a sense of the kind of working and social life his parents had while here had added a crucial new layer.

"It was quite fascinating to sort of have a glimpse and a bit of the flavour of the era at the time, which was really quite enchanting ... it was a lovely experience," he says.

It's the kind of story the team behind Trove never gets tired of hearing, even though there are countless iterations to choose from.

The library's executive in charge of Trove, Alison Dellit, says the database has changed the way Australians have been able to engage with history.

"Instead of history being something that is about other people, Trove lets you see history that is something about yourself," she says.

"The biggest thing, the reasons those stories are so sustaining to us, and the reasons that people tend to choose to work on Trove, is because ... newspapers used to be thought of as ephemeral. It's hard to remember that but people thought that once the day was over, nobody would get access to the material again.

"But the stories that were told in there were stories that are of such resonance to people. A lot of it is local history, and that makes sense, this time portal back into the place that you may live now and what it was like in the past."

She herself recently found herself in a taxi during a thunderstorm, listening to the driver's story about joining the local football team after migrating here from Eastern Europe many years ago.

"I ran a search on Trove on my phone, and he was on the front page of The Canberra Times when he was 19, kicking a goal," she says.

"He'd been thinking about this for years, he had no idea you could just be there and look at this version of himself from a different part of his life and something he'd been so proud of and just have it available."

And while it does feel magic on this side of the computer, there's a vast amount of technical wizardry that needs to happen behind the scenes. Director of Trove's data and platforms, Pi Kliniun, says the massive amount of data, and the work required to keep it easy to access and navigate, needs constant technological advancement.

"I guess it is something that a lot of people probably don't think about - the kind of skill set that we require in order to make sure your data is accurate," he says.

Dellit says the library is not able to say what would happen should the crucial funding not come through.

The fact remains that despite the thousands of stories of serendipity, of people discovering their own histories and travelling through time, there is nothing magic about Trove.

"It does feel like magic, but it's not magic," she says - there are too many people, with multiple skills, dealing with vast amounts of data.

"We haven't made any decisions about what would happen because we are actively engaging with government," she says.

"And we are aware that the government understands the situation that Trove is in and we are all working and hoping for a solution."

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