RHSV Information Technology and Historical Societies Survey 2010 (part 7)

Funding sources for IT projects

Purchase computer hardware from:
Society funds - 93
Council grants – 49
Other grants – 52
Fundraising – 38

Purchase computer software from:
Society funds – 89
Council grants – 31
Other grants – 40
Fundraising – 32

General running costs for computer projects from:
Society funds – 112
Council grants – 15
Other grants – 9
Fundraising – 40

Grants from other organisations included:

• FAHCSIA - Dept Families Housing Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
• Volunteer Small Equipment Grant
• Museums Australia (Victoria)- Building Better Museums
• PROV Local History Grants Program
• Bendigo Bank
• Esso
• Local op shop

A number of groups obtained second hand computers from other organisations.
One group purchased a computer using funds donated by local Councillor.

RHSV Information Technology and Historical Societies Survey 2010 (part 6)

Groups with their own email:
Yes – 76
No – 88

Groups tend to use web email services such as Hotmail / Live (11), gmail (10), Yahoo (3), dcsi (1).

Some use email provided by an Internet Service Provider including Optus (7), Bigpond (6), Australis (3), chariot (2), Vicnet (2) or a webhost portal such as Ausvic (1).

Some use email attached to the domain name of the organisation.

66 groups use the email of a member for society business.

20 groups did not indicate using email.

Members of groups with email
14 groups reported not knowing how many members had email addresses, though one reported that they were now collecting the information.

Data provided as numbers of members using email

Some groups however reported a high percentage of members using email.
Other figures provided were one group each with 60, 65, 70 and 90 members using email, 3 with 100 members and one with 220.

Some groups provided information as number of members – other groups provided information as percentage of membership.

Data provided as percentage of membership

RHSV Information Technology and Historical Societies Survey 2010 (part 5)

Websites

Groups with their own website
Yes – 92
No – 71

Website hosting:

• Vicnet sites – 37
• Sites with own domain name (some of these possibly hosted on Vicnet) – 34
• Attached to websites of another organisations – 7
• Part of website of parent body – 4
• My Connected Community sites – 4
• Blogs as websites – 3 (Blogger and Wordpress)
• Community guide websites (2)
• Spaces.live.com – 2
• Google sites (1)
• 50webs (1)

Groups with webpage on another site

Yes – 27
No – 52

21 groups reported having a page on website of another organisation but did not have their own website

Help for website development
Help requested to develop a website: 18
Help requested to maintain a website: 16

54 of the respondents without websites of their own did not request help to establish or create a website.
33 of these respondents indicated that they did not have a presence on any website.

RHSV Information Technology and Historical Societies Survey 2010 (part 4)

Backing up computers

Frequency of backing up databases (and other computer files)

Backing up recent records:
Each time computer used – 44
Weekly – 27
Monthly –33
Other – 12

Backing up complete database:

Each time computer used – 24
Weekly – 15
Monthly – 49
Other – 26

How many copies of the back-up files are saved?

• 1 copy – 42
• 2 copies – 38
• 3 copies – 10
• 4 copies – 1

At least 2 (1), up to 4 (1), some, 10 (1)

Are back-up copies stored off site?

• 107 groups answered Yes
• 22 groups answered No

Selection of comments about backing up:

• quarterly / every few months(4)
• every 6 months (2)
• regularly
• irregularly (3)
• never back up computer (2)
• occasionally / ad hoc (2)
• depends how many entries are entered
• various times
• not often
• intermittent
• rather haphazard
• back-up plan being implemented (3)
• not done yet!

RHSV Information Technology and Historical Societies Survey 2010 (part 3)

Cataloguing programs used

• Inmagic DB/TextWorks – 66
• Excel – 37 *
• Filemaker Pro – 18
• Access – 18
• Collections Mosaic – 6
• Heritage V – 5
• Microsoft Works – 5

Not using computers for cataloguing – 16
Other** – 15

Multiple responses to this question

*
13 groups reported using only Excel for collections management.

Excel was also used by groups using Inmagic DB/TextWorks (10), Access (10), Filemaker Pro (3), Collections Mosaic (2) and Microsoft Works (2)

**

• Specially designed / in-house database – 5
• Records directly added to library catalogue / database – 2
• Tellico (Linux), Tabularium, eLibrary, Bookmark, Copernic and Tribute were other programs mentioned

Type of items in computer catalogue

• Photographs – 125
• Books – 106
• Documents – 103
• Maps – 73
• Artifacts – 72
• Ephemera – 70
• Audio tapes – 53
• Videotapes – 49

132 groups answered this question

Catalogue records made available to the public

• Staff searching for researchers at the society – 125
• Researchers using a read-only database at the society – 47
• Researchers using a read-only version of the database at a library or another location – 4
• Local history database available on the Internet – 25

RHSV Information Technology and Historical Societies Survey 2010 (part 2)

Use of computers at societies

• Cataloguing – 126
• Administration – 109
• Indexing projects – 92
• Newsletters and other publications – 90
• Internet access – 59

 35% of responding societies have Internet access at the society

 

24 metropolitan and state-wide groups (14% of total respondents or 50% of metropolitan and state-wide responding groups)
35 regional groups (21% of total respondents or 30% of regional respondents)

 

Use of computers - members' computers

• Internet access – 128
• Administration – 125
• Newsletters and other publications – 115
• Indexing projects – 53
• Cataloguing – 47

 Five groups listed scanning images at home as another activity

 

Typed of items scanned

• Photographs – 122
• Slides / negatives – 57
• Documents – using OCR – 81

 Not all groups scanning documents use OCR

RHSV Information Technology and Historical Societies Survey 2010

This series of blogs will contain information on how organisations affiliated with the Royal Historical Society of Victoria are using information technology in 2010. The final report will include a comparison with the results from a similar survey undertaken in 2003.

In April 2010 a questionnaire on how societies / groups affiliated with the RHSV use technology was sent to all affiliated societies.
In July reminder emails were sent to groups who had not returned the questionnaire.
By 3 August, 165 completed surveys had been returned.

Break down of surveys

Societies were asked whether or not they owned a computer
144 of the responding societies own at least one computer
6 are planning to purchase computers
15 have no plans to purchase a computer

Reasons for not having a computer include:

• Use computers of another organisation (7)
• Do not have a collection or use collection in local library (4)
• Nowhere to store collection – stored at a member’s house
• No headquarters for organisation – meet in members’ homes
• Office bearers / members use own computers
• Members not interested
• Insufficient finance

Computer hardware owned by societies

Computers

• Desktop – 134
• Laptop – 56
• Both – 46

Printers

• Inkjet – 110
• Laser – 62
• Both – 37
• Printer-scanner – 3
• No printer – 9

Scanners
128 respondents said they had a scanner at the society

 CD-ROM / DVD burner

110 respondents reported having a CD-ROM burner and or DVD burner

 Back-up devices

• External hard-drives – 71
• CD-ROM / DVD burner – 69
• USB drives (memory drives, flash drives) – 64
• Floppy disks – 28

A combination of backing up devices often reported being used