HONOUR BOARDS: RSL RESEARCH & PRESERVATION PROJECT.
NOTES ON TABLE DESIGN AND COMPUTER ACCESS METHODS.
version: september 2002

Background. In 1993, Anzac House asked all Local Government Councils to provide a detailed index of Memorials and Honour Boards within their Municipal areas. The response was good. Subsequently, in 1994, RSL Victoria published the Pictorial Record "War Memorials of Victoria". But it was decided then that the compilation of a record of Victorian Honour Boards was beyond the technical capabilities then available, and all files were archived to RSL Stores, South Melbourne.

Action. In mid-1998 Col Williams asked Korean War veteran Ken Goudie, a civil engineer and systems analyst, to run a feasibility study into designing a system for the indexing and subsequent publication of the archived Honour Board data.

Result. After several weeks, a simple Table was designed. This table, like any table, is comprised of rows (ie records) and columns (ie fields). Each row contains a record of all known data for each and every Honour Board for which data has been reported. A new row is simply added to the Table when each new report of an additional Honour Board record is received.

Example of a small corner of the main HB Table.

Some more detail. Each record contains many different pieces of information. Each piece of information is written into its own column. A few examples (see above).... there is an individual column for "original location (ie site) of this HB", another for "where this HB is now housed", another for "which war", another for the date reported, another for the reporter's name, and so on for 35 columns across the page.

In other words, the main HB Table contains some 35 columns spread across the page, belonging to each of a couple of thousand or more records spread down the page. Each column in each row contains a designated item of information about the particular Honour Board which is 'owned' by that row. Each row is a record of one Honour Board. Several such Tables are combined to form a database. For instance, besides the HB Tables, the Honour Boards database contains Memorial Tables,    Contributor Tables, Township Tables, and many Query Tables and others.

This 5MB Interim Website is a temporary arrangement pending the reinstatement of the main complete 150MB+ website. It contains a very small selection of recent research photos and transcripts (with active hyperlinks). It also lists an index of the latest summary of known and unknown HB data, in which the photo and transcript hyperlinks are shown (for clarity), but obviously cannot be connected to actual photos due to the space limitations of a very small website. All incoming research data is processed into the Glen Waverley computer system, using as needed, a HP scanner, MS Excel spreadsheet, MS Access Database, and many other software programs.

Queries to Ken Goudie, Coordinator, Honour Board Research & Preservation Project.
(e-mail address      goudie@optusnet.com.au)