RHSV Information Technology and Historical Societies Survey 2010 (part 8)

Problems

• Time – 116
• Staff– 99
• Finance – 56
• Inadequate training – 47
• Inadequate equipment – 40
• Inadequate guidelines – 22
• Other* – 25 

 *Lack of interest, inadequate space and aging volunteers frequently cited

Comments
Availability of volunteers

• Limited number of volunteers
• Recruiting people to be involved or commit to projects is sometimes difficult
• Hard to find people interested in historical research – even their own properties
• Availability of data entry operators – age of membership
• Finding volunteers with appropriate skills
• Insufficient number of volunteers computer literate
• Limited time availability for those with limited skills
• We always need more suitably skilled volunteers
• Just commenced cataloguing project and currently training new volunteers
• Had heritage volunteers – great

Age of volunteers

• Age of membership mainly seniors – multiple community commitments
• Most of our twelve members are elderly
• Membership of 15 members, mostly elderly – secretary does all the computer work – membership numbers declining – four moved recently to aged care
• Majority of members past retirement age – most do not have computers or computer skills – those with computer skills, skills limited – many will not even turn on the computer to look at the database despite it being set up for easy access
•  Members in the 75+ age group – they have a go

Computer literacy

• Lack of interest in members learning how to use a computer
• People – not enough researchers or computer literate people
• Computer literate active members (lack thereof)
• Lack of volunteers – due to age find computers a challenge – don’t retain computer skills learnt
• Not many confident (computer) users in the older generation
• Only the secretary is computer literate plus webmaster

Building

• Inadequate space (3)
• Inadequate space – our space is storage – desperately need an office space area
• Room not big enough for more than three
• Facilities inadequate – cold! No plumbing, telephone, internet – but not enough people to warrant it?
• Difficulty of heating premises in winter
• Space / area needs upgrading & fitting out to be used – currently work is done off-site
• Society meets in neighbourhood house where no storage allowed
• Access to the building difficult at night