Doncaster Templestowe Historical Society: DTHS WebSite and IT Systems Overview and rationale

The objective of DTHS website and IT Systems is to:

assist in administration of the Society
maintain records of the society, it's activities and the objects in the museum collection
publish as much of the collection online as possible through the website and through the Vistociran Government Online database, Victorian Collections.

DTHS Website

This website is built using the google service "blogger". Use of this service has many advantages over other approaches:

blogger requires very little technical expertise to setup and operate
blogger does not require purchase and annual registration charge of a domain name.
blogger does not require annual payment for "web hosting" i.e. storing text, images and video online
blogger does not require site security management against online cyber attacks such as denial of service etc. because google manages these.
blogger has no limit to the number of pages or images uploaded.
blogger is automatically promoted in google search by google resulting in excellent "searchability".

Page design is limited to available templates/themes (free and purchaseable) which can be altered by people familiar with XML and python languages.
No undo i.e. editing mistakes/ content deletion have no easy undo or fall back other than the most recent full site backup.

one person has full control of the site. Others can be involved through page duplication in a seperate blog, editing there and copy back.
pages are added on new topics as often as possible
customised google search is used on the search page as it allows more complex seaches than the built in blogger search panel
blogger is easily backed up (periodic xml download from blogger, and periodic download of full text and imagery from every page using sejda service)

Original full text of all sources is retained. New revisions are added as seperate sections of a page or in a new page.
Sources are identified at end of every section - hopefully with a link to an original source, or to an online version in original format (usually as pdf)

As at Jan 2023, the inventory of all objects is about 3/4 complete.
Museum photograph and document information is being continually entered into a database called Inmagic DB/TextWorks. Phtoographs are being scanned as they are entered.
Objects are being described and photographed
Hopefully some time in 2023, we will be able to get assistance from Victorian Collections to bulk upload our records of photographs, objects and documents into their online database.
Online editing of the Victorian Collections records with then replace the used of Inmagic DB/TextWorks.

Microsoft provides 1Tb of online storage so all files are stored online for partial sharing as well as backup.
In this way we can provide direct access to all files (all pdf originals, all photos, all files etc etc) where necessary.

Source: Stephen Digby, 2023