This card contains a reference to a newspaper article on Mrs McAlister. There are 3 key pieces of information on the card.

1. The title of the card – Mrs McAlister. The title indicates the broad subject of the card; it allows you to find other references on the same subject.
2. The summary or synopsis – in this case, a market day will be held in McAlister's grounds for the purpose of securing funds to wipe off the debts in connection with the Cronulla Soldiers' Home. This is a summary of the content of the full article and may sometimes include the article headline.
3. The reference to the source of the article – the original article can be found in The Propeller (newspaper) published on 21/09/1917, on page 1..

In some cases, the summary provided on the Index Card has enough information to meet the user's needs. You cannot, however, find the full article on this site. If you would like to read the original article you can view the microfilmed copy of the Propeller Newspaper, which is available in the Reference collection at Sutherland Library (or on Trove if the newspaper has been digitised by the National Library of Australia).

You can see the full record for this card on this site at https://localhistory.sutherlandshire.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/148341

Here we have a typical example of a card that references Sutherland Shire Council minutes. It contains the same three pieces of information that the previous card – the Title (or subject), the summary of the content, and the reference to the original source. 

If you look closely at this card, you will notice that there are three references to Council Minutes. A little background on how Council makes decisions will help you understand these references.

In many cases, issues raised are first discussed in a Council Committee. Committees consist of a selection of Councillors, relevant Council staff and sometimes representatives from the community. After a Committee discusses the issue, it makes a recommendation to the full Council. The issue is then raised in a meeting of all elected Councillors (a Council meeting as opposed to a Committee meeting). All elected Councillors attend and vote in Council meetings, but Council employees and community representatives are not.

As a result of this structure, you will often see Index Cards that refer to Council Minutes have at least two and sometimes more references. The first reference generally regards the Committee meeting where the issue was initially discussed, and a recommendation made. There is usually a second reference to the Council meeting where the Committee recommendation was considered and voted on by the full Council, and a decision made. And in some cases, the issue may have been considered in subsequent meetings or there may be further references to reports and appendices that are published separately from the minutes. 

In this particular card, the first reference is to minute no. 30 in the General Committee meeting of 28/01/1958. The issue was then further discussed in minutes no.145 and 309 of the full Council meeting on 24/02/1958, with further related information on pages 22-26 of the minutes of the same meeting. These referencesallow you to track the progress of this issue through the Council decision-making process. 

Access to Council Minutes can be gained in the Reference collection at Sutherland Library. View the record for this card at https://localhistory.sutherlandshire.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/148342

Quite often the same event or issue will be reported in more than one local newspaper. When this happens the Index Card may have multiple references to different sources, like this card.

In this example you can see that the Council was considering a pedestrian crossing over the Princes Highway at Engadine to provide access the railway station. There was some debate about whether to build a bridge over the highway or a subway under the road.

This resulted in articles in several newspapers including:

1. The Leader on 14/04/1971, page 32.
2. The Pictorial News on 24/04/1971, page 15.
3. The Engadine District News on 04/04/1971, page 1.

View the record for this card at https://localhistory.sutherlandshire.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/148347.

Although it is a bit more rare, some Index Cards contain references to more than one type of source.

In this example about the demolition of the old Woronora Bridge there are references to the minutes from a council committee meeting and a newspaper article published the next day. In this case there will be 2 references added:

1. Minute No. 188 from the Works and Traffic Committee meeting on 20/07/1981.
2. Page 3 of the Pictorial News on 21/07/1981.

View the record for this card at https://localhistory.sutherlandshire.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/61584.

As you become more familiar with the structure of newspaper and minute references it becomes easier to recognise and interpret different sources.

The First Fifty Years of the Sutherland Shire Council, 1906-1956 is a manuscript produced by David R. Kirkby documenting the early days of the Sutherland Shire. It is colloquially known as the Kirkby Manuscript.

It was the indexing of this manuscript by Bernard Sargeant in 1979 that began the creation of the historical index (Sutherland Shire Historical Society Bulletin, No. 30, Nov. 1979, p. 304-5). Subsequently, Mr Sargeant moved on to create the index cards for the local newspapers and Council Minutes that constitute the bulk of the Index Card records in the Discover Local History collection.

There are many Index Cards in this collection that reference the Kirkby Manuscript. They can be identified by a red KIRKBY INDEX stamp. Each reference consists of a summary of the topic and a page number that corresponds to the original Manuscript. Typically, are several references on each card.

In this example about the Kurnell Wharf there are four references to:

1. Expenditure of £600 approved, but work did not proceed due to shallow foreshores, 1920. pages 71-2.
2. New passenger jetty, part of 2nd Spooner scheme programme, 1939. page 23.
3. Jetty, part of post war construction schedule, 1943. page 427.
4. Caltex responsible for the cost of wharfage facilities for Australian Oil Refinery, 1952. page 654.

View the record for this card at https://localhistory.sutherlandshire.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/100660.

In terms of the Libraries' Crowdsourcing project, the Kirkby Index cards are quite different to the Newspaper and Council Minutes cards. As such, we treat them differently. Therefore, we are asking our crowdsourcing volunteers to just mark these records as Kirkby Index in the Card Type field and change their status to Too Hard Basket. Later, Library staff will make additional edits to record the details on the card and group them together in their own collection.

SEE references direct users from one term to the preferred term for that subject. For example, if a user is looking for the Helicopter Surf Rescue Service and they see this card, they will know that all the preferred term for that subject is Helicopter Rescue Service. By using the preferred term, the user will find all the resources in the collection about the Helicopter Rescue Service.

View the record for this card at https://localhistory.sutherlandshire.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/28378.

SEE ALSO cards look very similar, however, the references to other subject headings should be considered as additional terms that can provide information based on similar or related subjects.

In this example, the See Also references indicate that, in addition to references to the Captain Cook Landing Site Historic Place, there are related cards that have subject headings including:

1. FORBY SUTHERLAND MONUMENT, Kurnell
2. CAPTAIN COOK LANDING PLACE RESERVE
3. KURNELL PENINSULA NATIONAL PARK PROPOSAL, and
4. CAPE SOLANDER DRIVE, Kurnell

View the record for this card at https://localhistory.sutherlandshire.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/71732.