🌟 Unearthing Victoria – telling stories of the past that speak to the problems of today

What interesting and useful stories can we tell about places in Victoria using the digitised historical business listings from the old Sands and McDougall (S&McD) directories (available in Victoria Unearthed) and other historical data and information sources?

What makes an “interesting and useful story” is deliberately open-ended, but requires a rationale for why the story is interesting and useful. It could be, for example:

• What business activities may have occurred at this place, and does this have implications for the present day (e.g. possible heritage value, potential legacy contamination, other facts of note…)? ­ - For example, which locations/areas are most impacted by potentially contaminating industries of the past, and where is the greatest risk?
• What can we learn from patterns of past business development that may be of relevance for today? ­ - For example, how does the data show the interaction between industries and population and how it changes through time?
• What can the data tell us about the growth and decline of specific industries over time, including any current implications?
• Or … anything else that speaks to a current issue, concern or interest.

Submissions that will appeal to the judges may involve:

• A mobile-friendly approach to accessing and viewing place-based data;
• Solutions that help improve the S&McD dataset, such as: improving the accuracy and precision of the location data; linking to other existing data sources; or allowing users to add or correct information (e.g. ‘crowdsourcing’)
• Mining the S&McD data for “interesting and useful stories”
• Something really brilliant that the judges hadn’t even considered – feel free to blow our minds!

Data and Posters

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1D0Yj4-Lr-P2XEzuv4L2M_sEBhkCGUtem