Victorian Local History Database

The Victorian Local History Database is a regional database containing cataloguing records from participating societies affiliated with the Royal Historical Society of Victoria.

The database can be access on the RHSV website either from the Local History Online page or the Affiliated Societies page.

The records in the database describe non-0bject items held in collections. Only the fields describing the item are used in the regional database.

Societies involved in the project export the required fields for each record and email the file to the RHSV to be imported into the regional database.

Societies do not need to have direct access to the Internet in order to be involved.

Although the database at the RHSV used in this project is DB/TextWorks, records from other databases and catalogues such as those created by File Maker Pro, Access and Excel can be included provided that the records can be exported as Ascii or comma delimited files. Field names of exported records need to be the same as the field names used in the Victorian Local History Database.

Advantages for societies in being part of the Victorian Local History Database project include:

• Societies not involved in other regional database projects can have their records included in a state-wide local history database.
• Regional Internet databases promote the organisations contributing records.
• Collections in historical societies form part of the Distributed National Collection. Participation in regional databases promotes the important and often unique items held in collections.
• Regional Internet databases allow researchers from anywhere in the world to locate material held in collections.
• Using regional local history databases can allow researchers to follow new research threads in collections they may not have originally considered searching.

If researchers are interested in items located via the Victorian Local History Database held in a society collection, they contact the society directly to find out how they can obtain a copy. A list of contact details for each participating society is provided.

For further information on how societies can become involved in this project email the RHSV at office@historyvictoria.org.au.