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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.
volunteers in an office
Volunteers working on the VPRS 794 project.

 

2024 volunteer projects

The volunteer activities undertaken in 2024 include completed and ongoing projects to make records more accessible to researchers. Each project is centered around a specific series (VPRS) of the collection. 

  • VPRS 794 – sorting and listing Education Department Inward Correspondence spanning 1873-1963
  • VPRS 3183 – repackaging, digitising, listing and publishing Town Clerk’s correspondence spanning 1920-1925
  • VPRS 4527 – digitising 80 volumes of Ward Registers onsite and transcribing searchable data from these while volunteering from home
  • VPRS 8168 – digitising the Historic Plan Collections showing routes of early Proclaimed Roads
  • VPRS 926 – transcribing the Coranderrk Letter Book
  • VPRS 870 – formatting and validating the listings for administration bonds completed in a previous volunteer project
  • VPRS 626 – listing searchable data for Land Selection files created by the Occupation Branch of the Department of Crown Lands and Survey after 1874
  • VPRS 12902 – listing and repackaging Public Transport Corporation Negatives
  • VPRS 4066 – listing and tidying Inward Correspondence to the Governor from 1854-1857
  • VPRS 8363 – copying negatives, digitising the contact prints and using the contact print images to test a new artificial intelligence image description program as part of 3 separate projects centred around Melbourne Harbour Trust contact prints and negatives.
  • As well as cataloguing the PROV Context Library, a treasure trove full of various Victorian Government Publications
two volunteers with a photo they digitised
Two volunteers with a photo they are digitising from the Melbourne Harbour Trust collection.

 

Material in the Public Record Office Victoria archival collection contains words and descriptions that reflect attitudes and government policies at different times which may be insensitive and upsetting

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples should be aware the collection and website may contain images, voices and names of deceased persons.

PROV provides advice to researchers wishing to access, publish or re-use records about Aboriginal Peoples

Learn more