LOCAL STUDIES INTEREST GROUP
Tuesday 22nd March 2011
Athenaeum Library
Present:
Kathy Smalley
Lina Favrin
Edith Fry
Ros Ryan
Kay Rowan
Robyn Luczynski
Liz Pidgeon
Anne Burrows
Paul Michell
Glenn Greening
Myra Dowling
Vicki Court
Apologies:
Heather McKay
Libby Bernard
Elaine Craig
Eastern Regional
Yarra
Central Highlands
Wimmera
Port Phillip
Moonee Valley
Yarra Plenty
SLV
Darebin
Darebin
Boroondara
Whitehorse Manningham (Nunawading)
Royal Historical Society of Victoria
Melbourne
Wyndham
Whitehorse Manningham (Doncaster)
The meeting was held at the Athenaeum Library. Jill Bartholomeusz provided an overview of the 171
year history of the Athenaeum and the library and outlined some of the features of the collection. http://www.melbourneathenaeum.org.au/.We then held our meeting in the Board Room.
Around the Table:
Kathy Smalley- Family History and Local History Librarian Eastern Regional Libraries
 Now subscribing to FindMyPast.au as well as FindMyPast.uk. No longer have to use a password to
sign in, site can be directly accessed in the same manner as Ancestry Library Ed.
 Participating in the Memories of Melba 1861-2011 and the program runs from Sunday May 1 to
Sunday May 29 2011.
 I have joined the History Week subcommittee of the Yarra Ranges Heritage Network
Throughout the year, are having 4 various talks being given at a number of ERL Branches:
Beginning Family History, Further Family History, Using Ancestry Library edition in Your Research
and Using FindMyPast, both UK and AU in Your Research.
 Preparing to digitize the paper files of our various Local history collections in our branches
 Attending the Local Studies Conference in Sydney in May.
Edith Fry Ballarat Library, Central Highlands
 Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation is de-corporatising, so watch this space for
developments
 have discovered Twitter, what fun it is http://twitter.com/#ediefry
 staff hours in AR have changed in an attempt to be creative with the time available to us; we
encourage users to make appointments, the room stays open til 6pm but staff work elsewhere in
an attempt to avoid interruption
 we are in desperate trouble with fiche readers and campaigning for new ones
 we've collared a grant from DPCD to showcase our digitisation project, which is so modest it
hardly needs showcasing; we are planning a workshop in June aimed first at other libraries but
also open to historical societies or others interested in small scale digital projects, again, watch
this space (thanks all for feedback provided, very useful)
 I'm looking forward to Sydney in May and the Sense of Place conference
 lastly, because we met in a Mechanics institute, just to note Ballarat Mechanics Institute's
refurbishment and renovations are complete, and the place is utterly splendid looking
Ros Ryan – Wimmera Regional Library Corporation



Conducted a Night-time & Virtual tour of the old section of the Horsham Cemetery
New” Enterprise” library website with Local History page
(http://swft.wrlc.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/wrlc/rw$003d0$0026rm$003dLOCAL$002bHISTORY
0$00257C$00257C$00257C1$00257C$00257C$00257C0$00257C$00257C$00257Ctrue$0026)
and blog (http://wimmera-w-b-w.blogspot.com )
New smaller Mobile Library arriving in April
Lina Favrin – City of Yarra – Fitzroy Library
 Fitzroy History Society is hosting a “Researching Your House” talk on Thursday 14th April at 7pm
in Fitzroy Library Meeting Room, Fitzroy Library, 128 Moor Street, Fitzroy.
 Fitzroy Library now has the rate records/cards for 1958-1973 for the City of Fitzroy scanned as
PDF. This was possible as a result of a grant received from the PROV. The records will be
available online from the PROV website in the future and in the library.
 The television program “ Who’s been sleeping in my house?” will feature “17 Napier Street,
Fitzroy” when it screens in August 2011.
Anne Burrows – State Library of Victoria

Family History Feast 2011 will be held on Monday 1 August 2011 at the State Library of Victoria
during National Family History Week.

Shake Your Family Tree Day 2011
On Friday 25 February 2011, Grant Hamston and I from the Genealogy Team set up a SLV stand
for the fourth time at the annual Shake Your Family Tree event organised by the National Archives
of Australia at the Victorian Archives Centre, 99 Shiel Street, North Melbourne from 10am to 4pm.
Organised by NAA. Shake Your Family Tree is a free Australia wide NAA initiative with all events
occurring at each of the NAA'S regional offices on the same day between the same hours.
Over the day at North Melbourne more than 200 members of the public attended, a drop from
2010. There was strong public interest in the SLV Genealogy Centre resources, public training in
genealogy, newspapers' shipping information and a range of Victorian historical topics. Grant and I
received more than 120 inquiries over the day and were kept busy.

Family Matters blog reminder
http://familymatters.blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/
The Family Matters blog keeps you up to date about all things family history at the State
Library of Victoria. It is written by the Genealogy Team of Anne Burrows, Carmen Quick,
Grant Hamston and Chris Wade. The blog informs you about events, service updates, training
programs and new items in our Genealogy Centre collection. It also gives research tips and
links to handy family history websites.
Comments are very welcome!
Kay Rowan – Port Phillip
“I attended two meetings this year of the Professional Historians Association and was impressed by
the quality of speakers and interesting topics chosen, and thought that the Local History/Studies
Librarians might like to know about them.
 The first meeting was about Web 2.0. Speakers from Public Record Office of Victoria discussed
how PROV is engaging their community with their Wiki http://provcommunity.ning.com/; another
speaker from Culture Victoria, demonstrated what can be found on their wonderful website
http://cv.vic.gov.au/ Lastly there was a representative from Waybackwhen Consultant
Historians. All these speakers explained how the cultural and history sector is embracing
videocasts, podcasts and blogs.

The other meeting was about small publishers – focusing on Arcade Publishing who publish tiny
books, two of these are ‘Melbourne Remade’ by Seamus O’Hanlon and “MacRobertsonland” by
Jill Robertson. The publisher Dale Campisi and author Seamus O’Hanlon were on hand.
I urge the Local History Librarians to have a look at the PHA website for future meetings – you don’t
have to be a member and a donation of $10.00 gets you pizza and a drink for dinner. The meetings
start at 6pm and are held at the Carlton Library, 667 Rathdowne Street”.
Robyn Luczynski – Moonee Valley
 The Essendon Historical Society has digitized the four volumes of The Annals of Essendon and is
now available on a CD; at this stage we will be loading it onto the Local History Room PC. At this
stage 140 copies of the disk have been made and the price is $25.00. It is fortunate that the
material in the Annals will be available in this new form, as the Essendon Historical Society has
almost sold out of Volumes 1 and 4. The library has been selling copies of the Essendon
Historical Societies latest publication The Fine Homes of Essendon and Flemington 1846-1880.
 The Moonee Valley Family and Local History Blog have received several awards over the last few
months from Geneabloggers, Geniaus and The Tree of Me: One Lovely Blog Award.
 Museum Victoria has an exhibition at the moment celebrating the 150 birthday of the Newmarket
Saleyards and I have been asked by the curators to scan additional information that we have in
our vertical files for them to add to their website.
 Attended ‘Know your History, Preserve Your Culture” Workshop at PROV in February. The
workshop was about researching Koorie Family History. Speakers were Tsari Anderson,
Coordinator Koorie Records Unit at PROV, Mark Brennan, Melbourne Office, National Archives of
Australia, Maxine Briggs, Koori Liaison Officer, State Library of Victoria, Sandra Smith, Project
Officer, Indigenous Cultures, Melbourne Museum, Jenny Bates, Manager Koorie Family History
Service, Koorie Heritage Trust and Jade Johnson, Healing Programs and Community
partnerships, Connecting Home.
 The Library has a 90-day trial of “Find My Past” which is a well known genealogy site. It can only
be used within the library and we have access to both the Australian and the UK versions.
 The library has commenced investigating the move to RFID; this will be progressively done over
the next two to three years, depending on council allocating the money.
 Added Audio Books to collection and next will be E-book, at the moment trialling Kindle, Kobo and
the IPad to assess the best product.
Exhibition
 Avondale Heights Library and Learning Centre had the international nuclear disarmament
exhibition, From a Culture of Violence to a Culture of Peace: Transforming the Human Spirit. The
exhibition was hosted by Moonee Valley as part of a national exhibition tour through Mayors for
Peace member councils throughout Australia in 2011.
Coming event
 Our Changing Community: Chung On Restaurant – talk at Sam Merrifield Library, Wednesday 6
April, 7pm
Liz Pigeon – Yarra Plenty Regional Library
YPRL
 Since then YPRL have launched a new interactive website. We encourage people to create a
username and login when they use it. There is a range of technologies that allow users to
personalise and optimise their library experience, make lists, tag and comment on items, connect
with others, book into events and much more. I have been contributing content to the new
website.
 But as a result we lost a lot of our links to our images so I have spent some time over Jan-Feb reloading individual images and have the backlog nearly up to date.
 YPRL have introduced a new time clock finger print system.
Local History
 Took receipt yesterday of Whittlesea Cultural Heritage Program now in its 11 th year. Whittlesea
libraries are represented in the program. Highlights that I have organised include two family
history research days and a talk by a local historian on the history of the Kinglake area.
 Facilitated my First Heritage Forum for the year last week which was hosted by Nillumbik
Historical Society at Ellis Cottage, Diamond Creek. 20 people attended, successful by all
accounts.
 Also attended the Combined Nillumbik Heritage Groups where I represent the library. We have a
strategic framework in place and have updated it to hopefully do some projects as a group to
recognise the Anzac Centennary and the 100 years of the Hurstbridge Railway Line in 2012.

New local history group established in my area – Greensborough Historical Society – they have a
blog website. I have been invited to be a guest speaker so will be doing that during Library and
Information Week 23 - 29 May 2011.The theme is Libraries: we find stuff!
 I have two staff members helping me with our newspaper indexing project and I create entries on
the catalogue when time permits.
Family History
 Launched our Family History Fest program for the third year at DV library, Greensborough – a
monthly program with a series of topics for family history researchers. I did the first one on
“Starting your family history” and had over 30 people. I have 15 people booked in tomorrow for
“Genealogy databases” and then have speakers lined up for upcoming months
 We have Lady Teviot returning to us for National Family History week and she will be speaking at
7 libraries at the beginning of August.
 We always celebrate August as Family History Month so I am about to organise additional events
and guest speakers for that.
 Currently in the midst of a staff trial of Find My Past.com.au
Personal
 Completed Free online methodology course at National Institute for Genealogical Studies
 Lined up do another one on social networking for genealogists but have not started yet.
 I am currently looking at putting together a flyer to promote LH and genealogy at YPRL
 I am looking forward to attending two events of interest:
 Museums Australia are running a one day seminar – Culture Clash – working with local
government March 31.
 A Sense of Place: local studies in Australia and New Zealand - State Library of NSW 5-6 May
2011
Local History items of note
 TROVE - The following local newspapers have been added to Australian newspapers, magazines
and more
 Advertiser (Hurstbridge, Vic. : 1922-1939, Eltham and Whittlesea Shires Advertiser (Vic. : 19401942), Eltham and Whittlesea Shires Advertiser and Diamond Creek Valley Advocate (Vic. :
1917-1922)
 Current Exhibition at Shrine of Remembrance till end of July - Care, compassion. Community –
70th anniversary of Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital - With a talk by Gwnedd Hunter-Payne on
Tuesday 10 May
 Shire of Nillumbik have just taken a new Heritage Strategic Framework to Council and it is about
to be put out to the community for discussion.
 In addition to this, Nillumbik have new web pages relating to Heritage on their website including a
link to their data on the Victorian Heritage Database
External
 Australian Heritage Week – April 14 – April 20
 State Library of Victoria will have their annual Family History Fest day on Monday 1 st August –
always a great free day with interesting speakers.
 RHSV History Week – 23 October – 30 October
 Unlock the Pat Victorian Expo in Geelong - 2 – 3 September
 17th Conference of the Oral History Association of Australia to be held at the State Library of
Victoria 7th - 9th October "Communities of Memory"
https://sites.google.com/site/communitiesofmemory/home
Paul Michell – Darebin
 Paul introduced Glenn Greening from Preston Library who will represent Darebin Libraries at
future meetings.
 Council Heritage Study now searchable via the Council website http://www.darebin.vic.gov.au/Page/page.asp?Page_Id=7589
 RFID is being rolled out. All (well, most) of stock has been tagged and we have readers on both
returns and issues desks. Go live for issues on 4 April. Self serve kiosks are scheduled to be
installed late April/May. Small RFID units has meant single use only. Larger units for returns are
on order;
 There have been many staff changes as a number of staff are on leave / higher duties. There was
a shortfall in funding for our casuals so the library has been somewhat sparse in hiring;;








There was a planned library restructure for March but this has been delayed to post July. There is
significant financial cutbacks occurring in council;
The Darebin Historical Encyclopaedia’s website is being redesigned to make it more user friendly
(Mac friendly too, and other browsers other than IE). Will allow the use of Web 2.0 links as well as
allowing more user interaction. (dhe.darebinlibraries.vic.gov.au)
The Professional Historians Association of Victoria has excellent monthly meetings that are open
to visitors as well as members (http://www.phavic.org.au/events/historically-speaking/index.shtml).
In particular the February meeting focused on Web2.0 and soon a summary of the sites
mentioned will be available here. I will let everyone know when I’ve finished this.
Debt collection – Darebin libraries is beginning to use a debt collector to collect unpaid fines. It
will be a softly, softly approach.
We now have Bolinda audio books for digital borrowing. Customers can ‘borrow’ them for the
normal 3 weeks. Have discovered some issues with technical support. The library does not
provide this. An issue with newbies doing downloads for the first time.
I provided some input into the International Women’s Day 100th anniversary with Council. 3
historic and significant Darebin women were highlighted – Joan Rosanove (famous lawyer and
divorce specialist), Ella Latham (wife of John, chairperson for long time of Children’s Hospital.)
and Marie Pitt (lyric poet).
I had planned to leave work by early April and finish in mid-May. However this has been put on
hold due to a special project. I now plan to start leave at end of May and resign mid-July.
Am working with Strategic Planning of Council on a pilot project auspiced under Heritage Victoria
– Migration Heritage. This is very exciting and there are planned wall projections at three libraries
between 27 April and 22 May of migrant images. This is to encourage the public to share their
images of special places that they / their relatives had.
Myra Dowling – Boroondara
 We are celebrating 150 years of continuous library service in Boroondara. As part of this
celebration, we are holding a 'birthday' morning tea at each Library. So far we have had one at
Hawthorn, Kew, Balwyn (33 years old) and Ashburton (31 years old). Camberwell's will be in June.
At each of the morning teas there has been a display of photographs, ephemera and historical
information. Patrons have enjoyed the opportunity to have a 'cuppa' and cake in the Library, and
have expressed their appreciation of the Library Service.

We have also run a competition for the community to nominate their top 5 books; from these
nominations we have compiled a 150th list for a Summer Read program. Our community
members were encouraged to read through the Summer and then submit an entry to go in a draw
for prizes drawn at the Ashburton Library morning tea.

Associated with this Summer Read, we have run a competition for youth aged between 8 and 18,
to create and submit a trailer for one of the books read on the 150 list. This has been promoted
via our website and youth blog http://aboutthebooks.blogspot.com/ . Prizes include some Apple
technology - Ipod Touch, Shuffle and Nano, and these trailers have been up on the blog for the
public to vote for the best. Nine entries were received and now as part of the voting, people can
also submit book reviews for the BLOG to go into a draw for some book vouchers. Visits to the
Youth blog have greatly increased during this time. The prizes for the winning entries in the
competition will be drawn at our next Youth event "About the boys & girls".
Vicki Court – Whitehorse Manningham – Nunawading Library
 Nunawading Library reopened on 15 March and generally well received by the public. We now
have a local / family history area instead of a local history room with reduced space. This means
that local newspapers, apart from the current year, are in a stack downstairs.
 The library now has Find My Past as well as Ancestry available for use in the library
 We are still working on the reformatting of the local history database and other databases – the
project has been made more difficult with the temporary premises of the past seven and a half
months.
Vicki Court – Royal Historical Society of Victoria
 The second podcast walk, West Melbourne Walk part 2 - is now online http://www.historyvictoria.org.au/podcastwalk2.htm .



The exhibition, Dancing the Skies, is at the RHSV until April 15. An online exhibition with the same
title is on the RHSV website - http://www.historyvictoria.org.au/DancingtheSkies.html
At the recent History Victoria Support Group seminar day at Narre Warren Library I spoke about
Working with Public Library Collections. Notes for the talk are in History Victoria e-news http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/rhsvstate/web/issue15c.html
I have resigned from the position of Local History Officer at the RHSV from 13 April
Meeting closed 4.00 pm
Next meeting
15 June 2011
Nunawading Library
RSVP Vicki Court vicki.court@wml.vic.gov.au
2011 meetings
September 15
November 15
Melbourne Museum Library
Melba Museum
Kay Rowan
Kathy Smalley