Bulletin

Issue: July 2004

Research

The massive task of indexing The Argus

It's probably the longest-running research project in which La Trobe University has participated and possibly the longest for any Australian University. It began in 1984 and with luck should be finished in 2010.

'I hope I am still around to see it through,' says La Trobe History Program Reader, Dr John Hirst, who is directing the mammoth task of indexing The Argus newspaper published in Melbourne from 1846 to 1955.

With a team of about 40 people, Dr Hirst is supervising the compilation of an index of the news content of the paper from 1860 to 1909.

He has four paid researchers plus more than 25 volunteer readers who read either microfiche or hard copies of The Argus. The senior researcher is Ms Geraldine Suter of La Trobe's History Program. There are other paid researchers at Melbourne, Monash, Griffith universities and the Australian National University, as well as volunteers.

The La Trobe-led indexing project, in collaboration with several universities and other organisations, is filling a 50 year gap between two Argus indexes. One index of the news contents of The Argus between 1846 and 1859 was compiled in the 1940s and 1950s by retired state librarian John Freely. Another index, from 1910 until the paper changed format from old fashioned broadsheet to slick tabloid in the 1940s, was compiled by the paper itself.

'Which left the half century gap between 1860 and 1909, a very important period in Victoria's history, that needed to be filled in order to give historians, heritage researchers, architects, engineers and many other people a ready reference to the events the paper chronicled,' says Dr Hirst.

What did The Argus say about the bushranging activities, trial and execution of Ned Kelly, the building and opening of the Exhibition Building, and many other events, famous or obscure, that contributed to the history of Australia?

'Current newspaper items provide insights to major events,' Dr Hirst said. 'For example there is a news story in The Argus about a man pretending to be Ned demanding free drinks in a pub and another about a bank manager who killed himself with a pistol issued to him to protect him from the Kelly Gang.

'The only way researchers can gather this information without expending enormous amounts of time is to have an accurately compiled index,' says Dr Hirst who first became involved in 1984 when the Victorian Government provided finance as part of its program to celebrate the State's sesquicentenary.

'It is a huge job. In 1999 we published five large volumes of index for the 1860s, taking two years per volume. We have now completed the 1870s with the assistance of a $300,000 ARC infrastructure grant. These volumes are currently in the final stages of editing and will be published on-line in collaboration with the National Library of Australia in Canberra which has become a partner in the project.

'We began work this year on the 1880s, also with grants of $300,000 from the ARC. If we continue to receive sufficient grants, we would expect to finish the entire project by 2009 or 2010.

'When the index is completed, Australia will have an equivalent resource to The Times Index in Britain or The New York Times Index in the US,' says Dr Hirst.•

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