Hippo sized hints

Hazel hones our histories.
Hazel’s hints help.

What works as a title? I settled on Hippo Sized Hints for this post.
I’m practising what I’ve learnt today. Three word titles  - preferably with some contrast or a conflict of ideas. This was just one example of the hints and tips received by an enthusiastic audience at Cooroy Library this afternoon.

Hazel Edwards, an Australian author of over 200 books presented an entertaining and informative session on Writing a Non Boring Family History.  Anecdotes, book promotion, writing hints and techniques were interspersed with practical exercises each limited to 2-3 minutes. These were designed to ensure that family historians should concentrate on avoiding “chronological boredom.”

In small groups of three we took the role of an ancestor and were interviewed by the others to relate that ancestor’s story in the first person. This provided an excellent focus for revealing gaps in known information. Other exercises had us concentrate on including all five senses in describing a place or room of significance.

Whilst I will probably never aspire to actually publish a family history, I came away with some excellent ideas for improving my blog posts. By the way, I can’t ever imagine a hippo providing me with hints but the hippo is a very famous character in “There’s a hippopotamus on our roof eating cake”
Writing a Non Boring Family History is available as an ebook from Hazel’s online store.

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2016/05/hippo-sized-hints.html

Keeping up with Trove newspapers

In order to keep abreast of newly digitised newspapers on Trove, I use a feed reader to deliver the latest titles. One can select from a variety of RSS feeds to keep up to date. Two popular feed readers that can be used on both computers and mobile devices are Feedly and Inoreader.

Videos on how to use feed readers

• How to start using Feedly by Richard Byrne from Free tech for teachers.
• Introduction to Inoreader
• Using Inoreader to follow blogs by Jill Ball

Add your choice from these feeds to your favourite reader to keep up to date.

• Newly added titles - the feed link is http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/rss/titles
• Newly added issues for any title - the feed link is http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/rss/issues

If you click on these links on a mobile device you will need to choose to open in a feed reader or news app. 

Individual states

Feeds are also available for individual states if you are particularly interested in a local area. Recent new additions to South Australian newspapers that have come to my notice through Feedly since the upgrade to Trove 7 in February include:

Frearson's Monthly Illustrated Adelaide News (SA : 1880 - 1884) added on 2016-04-22
An issue of this paper has been added for the very first time. Digitised issues are currently available for the following dates. More issues will be available soon. From 1880-10-01 to 1880-12-31

Harp and Southern Cross (Adelaide, SA : 1873 - 1875) added on 2016-04-21
An issue of this paper has been added for the very first time. Digitised issues are currently available for the following dates. More issues will be available soon.From 1873-12-05 to 1873-12-26

The Irish Harp and Farmers' Herald (Adelaide, SA : 1869 - 1873) added on 2016-04-20
An issue of this paper has been added for the very first time. Digitised issues are currently available for the following dates. More issues will be available soon.From 1871-01-07 to 1871-12-30

The Illustrated Adelaide News (SA : 1875 - 1880) added on 2016-04-20
An issue of this paper has been added for the very first time. Digitised issues are currently available for the following dates. More issues will be available soon.From 1877-01-01 to 1877-12-31

The Pictorial Australian (Adelaide, SA : 1885 - 1895) added on 2016-04-20
An issue of this paper has been added for the very first time. Digitised issues are currently available for the following dates. More issues will be available soon.From 1891-01-01 to 1891-12-31

Eyre's Peninsula Tribune (Cowell, SA : 1910 - 1950) added on 2016-03-07
An issue of this paper has been added for the very first time. Digitised issues are currently available for the following dates. More issues will be available soon.From 1911-03-10 to 1912-12-20

The Areas' Express (Booyoolee, SA : 1877 - 1948) added on 2016-02-26
An issue of this paper has been added for the very first time. Digitised issues are currently available for the following dates. More issues will be available soon.From 1919-01-10 to 1920-12-31

Thanks to the Trove team at the NLA for providing this valuable service.

Here's a snippet from The Irish Harp and Farmer's Herald of 1871 for #TroveTuesday, enjoy!

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com.au/

Apps in April A-Z challenge summary

Here’s a summary of the posts written along with the apps I covered in the A-Z challenge. Hopefully, you may find a useful app from these quick overviews. Thanks to all those who visited and commented along the way.

Here’s my Pinterest board on the A-Z of apps in April.

Follow Carmel's board Apps A-Z on Pinterest.

If you don’t use Pinterest here’s the list alphabetically.

• Apparently apps: Adobe - Acrobat, Draw, Photoshop express, Adobe Post, Adobe Voice and Adobe Slate
• Books and a box: Box, British Library and Book Creator
• Create and customise: Canva, Camscanner and Chrome
• Do your data a favour: Dropbox, Drive and Docs
• Explain and remember: Explain Everything and Evernote
• Feeding from the frenzy: Feedly, Flickr and Flipboard
• A Gaggle of goodies: Google, 13 apps
• Handy Tools: Haiku Deck, Handy tools and Heart Rate
• Instant and interesting: Instagram and Inside History
• Just Journals and Junk: Journeys toolbox, Tripit and Evernote
• Keeping and Kindling: Kindle, Keep and Swiftkey Keyboard
• Love a Library: LibraryThing, Borrow Box, OneClick digital and Wheelers
• Map a museum: Australian Museum Sydney, Powerhouse Museum Sydney, Museum Victoria Melbourne
• Notes on the News: Notegraphy and News
• Over and over: Overdrive and Over
• Poses and pins in the pocket: Photofunia, Pixlr, Pocket and Pinterest
• Quick response: QR codes i-nigma, Outback Queensland Traveller’s guide, This is Queensland
• Read and remember: Readability, Readly and Remembering Them
• Snap and substitute: Snapseed, Superimpose and Sandisk Connect Wireless Flashdrive
• Tune in and type: TuneInRadio, TED talks and TypeDrawing
• Update and upgrade: App stores and settings
• Vocal variations: Using speech recognition and voice recording in apps
• Extra, extras: XE currency
• Words of wonder: Word Swag and WolframAlpha
• Yes for your interests: YouTube
• Zero in on the good things: Zinio

To view a select few of the other many bloggers who participated, here's a magazine of 300+ articles from family historians and genealogists.

View my Flipboard Magazine.

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com.au/