RHSV Information Technology and Historical Societies Survey 2010 (part 9)

Comments continued
Equipment

• Recently purchased a computer – now need to decide what to do next
• Our computer is 7 years old – only Word Pad program
• Old computer & software – we have had help and guidelines, but not enough people
• Only two volunteers use the computer which is old
• Old group with no computers – I’ve just joined and am very interested in upgrading the society
• Group only uses computer for administration
• Need special equipment – large scanner
• Our major problems are training, organisation of equipment & fear of the unknown. Unfamiliar equipment is off-putting

 Finance

• Society has plans to purchase a computer, but no money for one
• Not much money, not many volunteers, no interest in computers by many

 Other

• Backlog of 50 years
• More time would be good
• Difficult to meet professional standards
• Computers used mainly for display and cataloguing
• No access to the internet
• Handful do large numbers of all the jobs about the place – we are slow oldies and too busy – upheavals and new people change things too much – struggling with images, all in fact

A success story

Our story is probably not unique among the Historical Society Network but a brief history of our computer usage might be appropriate at this time.

With the introduction of the RHSV Local History Database we made an application to the local council for a grant to cover hardware and the DB TextWorks software.

We were successful and purchased 4 second hand computers which were connected on a wireless network and now share a Society purchased photocopier as a network printer. Two of the PCs have local printers attached, two have A4 scanners attached and the Printer/Scanner/Fax is also shared on the wireless network.

Recently we have added another 2 PCs of similar specification and we now have 6 PCs on the network. All the PCs are Pentium 4 and run Windows XP and the Open Office suite of programs.

Over the last few years, using these PCs and software, we have been able to increase the quality and quantity of our publications. These range from a 12pp walk book to the most impressive, a very professional looking, 220pp A5, digitally printed paperback.

[This group now also has 3121 records in the Victorian Local History Database]