'Papers Past' updates **completed**

[newbe_nz]

Thanks Althea and KHP,

Will check it out at some stage when i get a chance.

Regards
newbe

[Beg Clonrode...]

Hello...

Another way is if you can set up your browser and image editing software side-by-side on your monitor you can just left-click and drag the bits of the newspaper column you want from your browser to the image editing software. The image editing software then connects to PapersPast and downloads the bit you've dragged. Very clever.

I use Firefox for web browsing and GIMP for image editing.

Regards
Beg

[kiwihalfpint]

I found by right clicking anywhere on the blank space of the bottom toolbar, and clicking on "show windows side by side" (mine is windows 7) you can do as Beg suggests on wordpad.

You just have to remember to unclick "side by side" when you finish.

Cheers
KHP

[PapersPast]

Yes, the search facility leaves a little to be desired.  What about implementing 'Boolean searching' with +, - and NOT terms.  The - are particularly important.

In addition to this 'Field searching' may help in the instance that Althea is talking about.  Many of the libraries use this in their SPYDUS catalogue system.
ie Choose one search term, get the results, refine them using another search term etc.

'Truncation searching' or 'wild card searching' (not just at beginning or ends but in between as well) would also be a bonus, especially when papers made mistakes with spellings of peoples names, addresses etc.


It's great to have the PapersPast resource but to have to then still search through hundreds of pages of results (no exaggeration) which is the way it is at present, is mind-numbingly boring.


Oh and while we are on the topic of improvements, PapersPast indicated to me last year that you were bringing in an user editing facility similar to the National Library of Australia system, this year.  Any ETA on that?


Thanks for hearing me out.  I do appreciate having this thread to communicate requests and ideas directly to Paperspast - it's a breath of fresh air (especially compared to the bureaucracy of other government departments).

Hi TT, Editing of the OCR text is very much on our radar. We will be testing this in-house later this year.
Papers Past does have boolean search. The format searchterm -excludedterm works fine, as does searchterm +includedterm, but I notice that searchter* didn't work as I'd expect it to. I'll see if I can find a definitive document on the state of boolean in PP when I get back to work on the 20th and get back in touch with you, because I suspect there might be idiosyncrasies in its implementation.

I think refining searches might be something we can improve too, but probably not in the next few months on the current Papers Past platform. We'll tackle text corrections first

[TwiggyTree]

Thanks PP

 

TT

[Timetraveller77]

And there is an Australian version with papers from 1803 to 1954.
http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home
 

As a fan of Paperspast in New Zealand, which has helped me immensely, I wanted to share this resource in Australia
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper

Like the one suggested by John, it is great for cross-referencing with NZ families who lived across the ditch. Not as easy to use as Paperspast, but if you persevere, you can strike gold. Hope this helps.

[PapersPast]

Hi All!

This might be ever-so-slightly off-topic, but I thought you all might be interested to know nonetheless.

Last year we launched the online version of the A to J's (Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives), with an intial 34-odd volumes from 1862-1879. It uses the same platform as Papers Past, so it's pretty straightforward to use, however there wasn't really enough content to be a significant genealogical resource at the time.

However, with the help of a few partner organisations we have just released (as of today)the first content update for A to J's - we now have 116 volumes available, from 1861 to 1906, and now it's starting to become a bit more useful, and not just to the historical researcher.

It differs from PP in that PP is great for fleshing out the newsworthy moments in people's lives, whereas A to J's is a complete documentary record of everything politically, socially, and economically noteworthy on a national level. Genealogists will note that there are many long lists of names in A to J's now, covering everything from declared earnings of farmers to lists of troops shipped off to the Boer War.

Give it a prod if you feel like trying something new!

http://atojs.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/atojs?a=q&e=-------10--1------0--

[Lucy2]

Thanks PapersPast

.... you do such a wonderful job ...  your efforts are so much appreciated.   

Off to "give it a prod"  !   

~   Lu

[Thamesite2017]

Hi Paperspast
you are a gem popping into let us know

I have been researching miners accidents, so having these extra years available is invaluable
There is such a wealth of info available in the journals

Thankyou to all involved in this very special project  
Bye
Althea