The National Library of Australia released in December 2008 the first stage of their project to digitise out of copyright newspapers. They are creating a free online service that will enable full-text searching of newspaper articles. This is a really fantastic project, and one of the current features is the ability of users to improve, annotate, and tag the scanned material.

I’ve found some interesting tidbits already. These include:

• Report of the death of Leonard Van Cooten – we were previously unaware of these circumstances
• Various listings (for example) of John Hughes Van Cooten traveling by sea along the coast of Queensland
• Reference to John Hughes Van Cooten working for Ipswich Woollen Mills
• Reference to John Hughes Van Cooten being involved in a horse-drawn vehicle accident
• Reference to William Neuendorf being involved in a horse fall
• Reference to the premises of Walter Neuendorf being burnt down