If you're interested in our program, read on below to find out more about projects worked on by volunteers. The program operates on weekdays and prospective volunteers need basic computer skills.

Public Record Office Victoria volunteers help us preserve our state’s records by:

• removing old packing materials and processing records into new boxes, bags or sleeves

• aiding discovery of records by creating indexes or searchable data

• adding value to records through digitising or even transcribing the text of the records themselves.
  
   

Current volunteer projects

 

Project: Education Correspondence (1873-1941)

 

These 1400 boxes of correspondence record information about employment applications and resignations, reports and instructions on school administration and maintenance, and correspondence on education law and regulations. Listing these records will provide for easy discovery of letters about a school or issue. Commenced February 2020.

Planning is underway for additional volunteer projects to commence later in 2024. Watch this space!

 

Volunteer projects recently completed

 

Volunteers have recently completed their component of the following projects. PROV staff are now working through the publishing process to make these tools and records more accessible to researchers now and into the future.  

 

Project: Indexing Inquest Deposition Files (1840-1937 and 1938-1985)

Inquest records from 1840 to 1937 are being digitised for online availability. This index will help you find inquest records, whether or not they've been digitised. They’re among the most popular records in the Victorian archives. 

 

Project: Historic Plan Collection

This project will digitise over 11,500 plans in 48 distinct collections, including pastoral runs, explorer routes, roads and river systems. Arguably the most valuable collection of plans in Australia. 

 

Project: Parish Plans Map Warping

This online project captures geolocation data to enable over 4,000 parish plans to be searchable by their present-day place names, as demonstrated in the video on PROV's blog. 

 

Project: Public Works Department Plans

Over 200,000 plans depict government department offices, schools, hospitals, bridges and more. The project aims to create searchable data to improve researcher access and repackage the records to increase their longevity. 

 

Project: Insolvency records (1863-1928)

 

Insolvency records document the formal process of declaring a person unable to repay their debts in full, and include proof submitted by creditors and statements of the cause of an insolvency. Indexing these records will enable easy discoverability of records of over 6,000 cases heard in the Supreme Court in the late nineteenth century. 

 

Project: Civil Case Files (1852-1919)

Civil case files record the outcomes of disputes over failure to pay debts, non-performance of contracts, personal injury and other complaints. Indexing these records will enable easy discoverability of records of over 150,000 cases heard in the Supreme Court in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.