Minutes of the Local Studies Special Interest Group held on Wednesday 8 June 2016 Geelong Library and Heritage Centre

Minutes of the Local Studies Special Interest Group held on Wednesday 8 June 2016 Geelong Library and Heritage Centre Item 1. Attendance & Apologies Minutes Liz Pidgeon Judith Oke Elaine Craig Natasha Kamenev Linda Longley Stephen Wright Karen Seckold Vicki Court Simone Sharpe Ellen Porter Janet Buick Heather McKay Janine Smith Jennie Moulder Edith Fry Simon Jacks Yarra Plenty Regional Library Geelong Regional Library Whitehorse Manningham Bayside Library service Melbourne Library Service Moonee Valley Wyndham City Libraries Whitehorse Manningham Stonnington history Centre Stonnington History Centre Stonnington History Centre City of Melbourne Moreland City Libraries Coburg Moonee Valley Libraries City of Ballarat City of Ballarat 1

Ros Ryan Kay Browne Myra Dowling Emily Grant Julie McInnes Tobias Nash Fiona Campbell Mark Beasley Wimmera Regional Library Corporation Hobson Bay City Council City of Boroondara City of Boroondara Monash Public Library Service Port Phillip Service Melbourne Libraries Geelong Heritage Centre Apologies Anne Burrows State Library of Victoria Kathy Smalley Eastern Regional Libraries Lina Favrin Yarra Libraries Fitzroy Library Nanette San Martin Monash Public Library Janet Palmer East Gippsland Shire Council Jason Brack Glen Waverley Library & Mulgrave Neighbourhood House - Monash 2. Confirmation of Minutes. 3. Tour of Library and History Centre Last Meeting was held November June 18, 2015 Stonnington History Centre Tour of Geelong Library and Heritage Centre with Mark Beasley, Manager, Geelong Heritage Centre Collection and Services See http://www.grlc.vic.gov.au/ Building consists of 9 levels. 5 th level is for functions. Colour scheme throughout based on Goethe s theory of colours. Reference collection has been re-branded to Treasures Collection Level 3 is the heritage collection - http://www.grlc.vic.gov.au/learn/educators-researchers/heritage Archives Commander compactus. Shelves designed for big volumes including Geelong Advertiser newspaper, Art racking, Map cabinets, The heritage centre is a Place of Deposit for records of local significance. (see http://prov.vic.gov.au/community-programs/places-of-deposit ) Space is temperature controlled with smoke detectors 2

Archives are catalogued by series series level and description some material also on the LMS. Heritage Centre Closed Sunday and Monday. 4. Updates RIP John Murrell - PLVN Memory Workgroup Writing the War Exhibition is going well. The panels will be refurbished in early July. Confirming budget for 16/17. Researching digitisation training options for next year. Running Branching Out online family history training for staff. Round One sold out within 4 days (we have 101 registered which is excellent news). Round Two will be offered in 16/17 but we ll juggle it around the other online training. Some staff who undertook the Digital Preservation Outreach Education training had the opportunity to undertake Digital Forensic workshop Caring for the materials stored on removable storage media (e.g. floppy disks, hard drives, thumb drives, memory sticks, CDs) requires us to extract whatever useful information resides on the medium, while avoiding the accidental alteration of data or metadata. Appling existing digital forensics methods and tools in order to recover preserve and ultimately provide access to born-digital records. National Family History Month in August The new website is available to promote our events on it. See http://www.familyhistorymonth.org.au/. RHSV History Week 16 23 October The website is now accepting registrations. See http://historyweek.org.au/. October is also Victorian Seniors Festival Wikipedia Workshops A number of local studies staff attended the Wikipedia Workshops organised by the ICT-SIG. The workshops were not fully subscribed which was disappointing, especially as this was a free day. Federal Election Campaign material NLA has called for community to collection election campaign material https://www.nla.gov.au/ephemera/federal-election-campaigns 3

Albox Australia http://www.albox.com.au/ Supplier of photo storage and related supplies (based in Adelaide) are under administration Ancestry Ben Mercer, Content Manager from Ancestry has resigned Local Studies Convener I am happy to continue being the Convener. But if anyone would like to discuss the opportunity to take on the roll I am happy to discuss further Ballarat Library 4. Reports It s been fairly steady as it goes at Ballarat this year. We ve been presenting our history at the hub sessions for family historians where we explore a different website/resource each week utilising our technology hub, this year we re running two series of six sessions across the year, and the first series was booked out and everyone very enthusiastic, so it will be interesting to see how the second series goes. In the middle part of the year we re having invited speakers, the first session with a paper conservator was spectacularly successful, with people bringing in objects for a clinic session. The conservator really enjoyed himself as the things that turned up were so astounding, including a WW1 scrapbook, a mysterious Chinese document (yet to be investigated) and some very rare books. For Family History month the Genealogy Society are doing their regular Book A Genie sessions where a member of the Society can be booked for one hour s free family history assistance. It works well and is easy to organise. The Library though is doing something online this year as a change to delivering talks etc.; in conjunction with the PROV we re creating a Treasure Trail on History Pin, focusing on Camp St in Ballarat. The prizes are nuggets and gems gems are the (transferable) skills we help develop as we guide through the records required to investigate the various buildings or associated people, and the nuggets of course are the bits of information we discover. It s in development stage at present, but I don t think it s going to be too hard or too time consuming to create. I ll let everyone know the link when we create it. By all means use it as a model! 4

We re gearing up already for the SLV s travelling exhibition in November/December, we re a little bit disappointed about the timing as very close to Christmas means our activities have to be in the first couple of weeks and we have such a lot planned! But we feel very excited about it, lots of interesting speakers being arranged and various activities. Just a mention about maps. Liz has alerted me to the SLV s digitising of the *geological survey quarter maps*, and they can be found by searching the SLV website using those terms. The SLV appears to have a complete collection. You can use the View tab to see them in all their lovely enlarged detail. Bayside Library Natasha Have recently undertaken a refurbishment Recognising an increased interest in indigenous history Boroondara Library New website and local history portal. Looking at putting together a digital plan Booroondara Remembers a WW1 book project was launched last year and won an award in the Victorian Community History Awards Casey Cardinia No report Dandenong Library No report Darebin Libraries No Report East Gippsland Shire Library No report Eastern Regional Libraries: - No report - Apology Geelong Regional Library Corporation - Judith Oke We are very pleased to welcome the PLVN Local Studies Group to Geelong Library & Heritage Centre, 8 th June. Geelong Library & Heritage Centre opened to the public 21 st November 2016. Throughout the building is found reference to the Wadawurrung people, traditional owners of this area. Each floor has been named especially and the Heritage Reading Room, Level 3 is Kim barne thaliyu, Here yesterday. GLHC has raised the profile of the Heritage Centre and introduced the heritage resources to many people who didn t know the HC existed. 5

Since opening the Heritage Centre Reading Room has had more visitors than in the previous 3 years. New technology includes a Cruiser table which highlights historical images, both still and moving, from the Geelong Photographic collection. This display has proved highly popular. We are excited about the potential of offering information sessions to the public. We are currently running a Monthly small group session, highlighting different collection themes. E.g. Image collection; Church records held; Rate Books held, which are also proving very popular. For Family History Week we will have two guest speakers: Lt Col Neil Smith the elusive digger, 2 nd Aug. 6-7pm Linda Emery Celebrities and their family histories. (researcher on Who do you think you are?), 23 Aug, 6-7pm Looking at 3D printing using SketchFab https://sketchfab.com/ Glen Eira Library & Info Service - No Report Goldfields Library No report Hobsons Bay Programs National Trust Heritage Festival. We developed and delivered two sessions People, places and things An introduction and hands-on session to research using our heritage resources Home Truths similar but with a focus on researching history of your house and Backtracks talk by author Joely Taylor All well received and well attended Our monthly heritage group continues to meet with numbers at a steady level (around 8-10). Allowing participants to get one-on-one assistance, Delivered a class visit session for upper Primary on the theme of Life in Williamstown during the Gold Rush. The inaugural session was delivered to the grade 5 students from our new local school Sandridge who are operated from the Heritage Listed Customs House building. Currently developing programs for the opening of the new Newport Library, youth seniors facility 6

Projects The team has been working on the heritage collection to ensure that items are returned to the subject lounges within the heritage collections. We have converted to DVD over 100 videos. Mainly on Altona they have been launched, uploaded to DVD and made available on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=plolsy-g_ew5fbfs31qjtwfovlg9e6wuow Have been supporting the celebrations of the 100 years celebrations of the Newport substation and the upcoming Industry and Arts festivals Training - Three Heritage staff attended the PLVN SLV Digital Preservation info session Other - Currently developing Family History sessions to be delivered to ESL classes on a trial basis in August and hopefully throughout 2017. Hume Libraries No Report Kingston Libraries No report Launched their heritage walking tours Maribyrnong Library no report Melbourne Library Service Graeme Butler s photos on Victoria s heritage are on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/7849945@n02/albums The Snapped Competition has opened : http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/community/libraries/whats-on/snapped/pages/snapped.aspx Participating in Rare Book Week: http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/community/libraries/whats-on/rare-bookweek/pages/melbourne-rare-book-week.aspx Melton City Council Library Service No Report 7

Monash Library Public Service Mount Waverley & Valley Reserve Walk On May 11 MPLS conducted, in conjunction with the Waverley Historical Society, an historical walk around the Valley Reserve and Lawrence Road areas of Mount Waverley. This was the fourth joint walk between the library and the Society. Each participant received a free handbook, outlining key aspects of the walk as well as historical photographs sourced from the local history collections of both the library and the WHS. Another walk is planned in October as part of the Victorian Seniors Festival 2016, focusing on the Burwood corner of the City of Monash. Family History group meetings These continue to be held monthly at Glen Waverley Library. Recent sessions have covered using the Digger Indexes and a visit from Jody Taylor of Ancestry in early June. This last session drew over 40 people, a record turnout for the group, including a number of new group members. A smaller family history group now also meets monthly at the Mulgrave Neighbourhood House, with the sessions facilitated by a library staff member. These meetings are more workshop formatted and do not feature guest speakers etc. Group members have access to the library s training laptops so that they can utilize Ancestry Library Edition and Find My Past. Social media image investigations MPLS, with the support of both the Waverley Historical Society and the Oakleigh & District Historical Society, has been investigating social media platforms to promote the local history photographic collections. Platforms such as HistoryPin and Flickr are options, with the library now leaning towards the latter. Probus Groups In early May a presentation was given to the Oakleigh Ladies Probus Club on how to begin your family history research, and what databases and online resources are available to access. The second half of the presentation focused on key websites for researching World War One military ancestors. A presentation to the Wheelers Hill Probus Club in November will explore WWI databases in greater detail. Anzac Exhibition and the Avenues of Honour 8

As part of the Anzac Day commemorations in April, Glen Waverley Library displayed a number of panels of artwork from the Trees to remember them by exhibition, which was held at the Monash Federation Centre in 2015. The panels focused on the World War One avenues of honour located in the City of Monash, including the avenue once on Blackburn Road which was lost to road widening in 1970. Only some remnants of the other avenues still exist, with the avenue in Carinish Road in Clayton potentially at risk of being completely lost due to Skyrail. National Family History Month 2016 Planned events include a training session for the public on the MyHeritage database, an introduction on researching your family history and a presentation/workshop on researching, preserving and dating old photographs by Peter King. As part of the celebrations the family history group members are putting together a special exhibition at the Glen Waverley Library called Footsteps in Time. Everyone has been asked to identify a person, a place, an object or an event relevant to their own family history. They need to provide one JPEG and about 100 words of text, which will be placed into special templates using In Design software, laminated and mounted on display boards. Monash Federation Centre (Oakleigh) A project has commenced, cataloguing 500 photographs held by the former City of Waverley. A display curated by the Oakleigh & District Historical Society, on Oakleigh High School, was held from March June. Significant community interest in the exhibition, brought together many past pupils and staff from the school, which was open from 1955 1991. An exhibition on the Oakleigh Cricket Club has just commenced, entitled The Oaks: at the Crease since 1879. Moonee Valley Libraries Stephen Wright Local History It has been a quiet few months for the local and family history department at Moonee Valley, with planning for the second half of the year taking up most of our time. Continuing adding items to Portfolio as part of our digital image collection. Since we began in February 2016 over 230 items have been added to our digital image pool. We are investigating new ways to highlight these images 9

and how we can promote them to the general public. Planning for Writing the War exhibition in March-April 2017. Moonee Valley Libraries has recently hired Susan McLaine who is helping us with our planning. Our Ascot Vale branch recently had a renovation to remove a façade that had been placed on it in 1976. Before it was a library it was a branch of the English, Scottish and Australian Bank built before the 20 th century and has been renovated as part of council s heritage plan for Union Road. Our ANZAC Day 2016 Talk by Major Bob Prewitt (Rtd.) from the Essendon Rifles who spoke about the importance of local people like William Scurry to the war. Planning is now beginning for Local history week in October, with heritage walks planned in partnership with the various local historical societies in Moonee Valley. Family History Family History Group continues weekly meetings. Planning for Family History Month complete, with programs and events going online to family history website soon. We have decided to try and incorporate family history into all of our regular classes for the month as well, to promote the importance of the month. Moreland City Libraries Tonya Lewis Port Phillip Library Prahran Mechanics Institute No report After 15+ years Christine Worthington has moved to a new role at the RHSV (Collection Manager/Volunteers Coordinator). 10

State Library of Victoria Anne Burrows (Genealogy Librarian) 1. Family History Feast 2016 Will be held on Monday 8 August at State Library Victoria during National Family History Month. Once again collaborative partners include State Library Victoria, Public Record Office Victoria, National Archives of Australia (Melbourne Office) and the Immigration Discovery Centre of Museum Victoria. Theme for this year is researching occupational records. Bookings will open on Monday 27 June. 2. Writing the War talks Librarians from the Family History Team have so far travelled to 5 Victorian public libraries who are hosting the Writing the War travelling exhibition to give an accompanying talk. Latest talk was given at Swan Hill Public Library on Saturday 28 May. 3. State Library redevelopment The Library is currently planning a major redevelopment. The Library brief on the redevelopment identified McArthur Gallery as a possible future home for Family History & Newspapers. The designers are now interrogating the brief to see if McArthur Gallery is the most appropriate home. 4. Branching Out 2016 (online introduction to family history offered to Victorian public library staff) In six modules over eight weeks from 6 June to 31 July 2016. At capacity with 101 participants. State Library of Victoria Tim Hogan no update Stonnington History Centre Whitehorse Manningham Library Vicki Court - Nunawading Library Preparations are underway for Whitehorse Heritage Week - 8-15 September - with theme of Celebrating the Arts. During Family History Month I will be running a session on Facebook as a family history research tool 11

I recently completed the SLV JumpStart course and I am now doing Branching Out. I have also completed Convict Ancestors - part of the University of Tasmania Family History Diploma, but single units can be studied as well. Whitehorse Manningham - Doncaster Elaine Craig Because WML is 20 years old this year, many events are being held, and the organization has a new logo and tag line, and all promotional material has been redesigned to reflect this. For Manningham Heritage Week in May, I presented a PowerPoint talk on the WML Heritage Network, using photographs of Manningham buildings. I also presented a talk on using Ancestry Library Edition, once again using PowerPoint, and using the new corporate template made them look very professional. I attended a one day workshop on become accredited with Wikipedia, which changed my opinion of Wikipedia, it is a lot more authoritative than I thought. I have just completed JumpStart training, and learnt a few things, and had other things reinforced. I am about to commence Branching Out. For National Family History Month, I will be presenting 3 talks, one each week, on using the Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages website, Ancestry Library Edition and findmypast. With the commencement of the redevelopment of Blackburn station, planning has now commenced on the redevelopment of Blackburn Library. Consultation is also in progress on the redevelopment of Bulleen Plaza Shopping Centre, where Bulleen Library is located. 12

Wimmera Library - Ros Ryan February did the DPOE training and delivered at Benalla with Liz, Lou & Julie. Crafting your own books presentation at Harrow. Re the shipboard journal here is the link to the diary posts http://bibliophile-biblionet.blogspot.com.au/search?q=diary got the canvas world map at local Spotlight also available in political as well as terrain. The binder box for the war photos was the 2015/16 Bolinda standing order plan promotion material (I got the last of the supply, but some libraries may still have the box) 19 th March did 3 presentations through the day at the Women on Farms Gathering 2016 at Hopetoun (passing the Brim silo art on the way) Did the ALIA Futureproof : Practical Digitisation Skills program 13

For the National Trust Heritage Festival ran Designing your own books 10 th May; 6 sessions of History of the Horsham library talk to groups of Horsham West students 12 th & 13 th May; and Secrets of Horsham s laneways walk 14 th May. For Library Week did a virtual Secrets of Horsham s laneways for the Lions dinner; Wimmera in Photographs Collection Day where we got some photos from the old SEC currently trying to get copyright permission to scan them from Citipower/Powercor legal department; and Placenames of the Wimmera ebook launch, link http://swft.wrlc.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_au/wrlc/search/results?qu=place+wimmera+ros&te=&lm=wrlc- S Attended the Lifting the lid: another perspective on Horsham CBD Walk on 4 th May part of the Art Is festival. A different walk with access to normally closed to the public buildings and performers telling the stories e.g. Mark Twain in his room at the White Hart Hotel as in 1895. Attended the Collections Directions day at SLV 7 th June which included Kingston digital historical walking trails which utilises QR codes, link http://www.kingston.vic.gov.au/library/library-services/local-history/kingston- Historical-Walking-Trails To attend The first day on the Somme author Pam Cupper s presentation on Australia s (and Wimmera s) involvement at Fromelles & Pozieres, on 3 rd July in Horsham To do another a virtual Secrets of Horsham s laneways for Probus on 4 th July Will attend SLVs Family History Feast Wyndham Library Karen Seckold Our big news is the arrival of two photo albums that arrived from Norway. Two years ago I was contacted by a gentleman about an Eric Engerbrigtsen, who was born in Werribee and served in WW1. The albums included his war service and his life and family in Australia and Norway until his death. We are going to add it as a collection onto our Wyndham history Website. No one in his family wanted the albums. Our Scan Pro 300 has been installed and is finally running and in heavy usage. It needed a USB-3 port for the software. Once this was sorted out we put it to use. We could use another one some days. Our Local Latter Day Saints Church has a new co-ordinator who is also one of my volunteers. She is going to advise all church members from far and wide to get the films sent to us because of the Scan Pro and she can help them on her day with us. 14

We are planning our Writing the War exhibition and will be working with the RSL and the Werribee District Historical society to run events concurrently. Family History Month is all booked and we will be running four events including, Oral History, Writing workshops, album Works talk and discount to create an album and German Family History Research. Yarra Library No report Yarra Plenty Regional Library Liz Pidgeon YPRL is associated with 19 program over our 4 City of Whittlesea libraries in the City of Whittlesea Cultural Heritage Program (May November 2016) https://www.whittlesea.vic.gov.au/facilities-and-recreation/things-to-see-and-do/eventscalendar?category=cultural%20heritage&utm including Lalor Library s 40 th birthday Working with volunteers one has digitised and researched photos relating to a donation of photos relating to Mont Park. These have now been uploaded to our Flickr page at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/25816694@n08/albums Planned Family History Month Over 20 programs across our 9 libraries Hosting the Writing the War Exhibition with associated local displays and programming including launch of our Local Anzacs Book which includes over 45 local stories on Saturday August 6. http://filestore.yprl.vic.gov.au/eventsbrochures/yprlevents JulAug2016.pdf Planning Local History Month for October Facilitating Yarra Plenty Heritage Group meetings. Next one will include a guest speaker on working with children (Education Programs) from Edendale Farm. Attending Digital Forensics Workshop 15

Attended Wikipedia Workshop Grant Funding confirmed for our Local Stories at the touch project with software from Doklab and multi touch screens to host historical photographs and other content. New Genealogy group started at Ivanhoe Library Huge backlog of photos to process onto Portfolio. Library Support Services (where my role is based) is relocating in August. Booklovers Festival is launching in July http://www.yprl.vic.gov.au/news/stories-that-are/ Vision Australia Heritage Collection no report 7. General News Heather attends a network of organisations about Digitisation which include SLB and PROV. She wonders if a PLVN SIG representative should attend and will follow up with further information. 8. Upcoming Events Family History Feast State Library Victoria Monday 8 August 2016 9. 2016 Meetings Thursday 15 September The Realm Library Ringwood November TBC 16