The Colonial Record Records of Colonial Australia

For institutions

The Record, for reading rooms.

Libraries, historical societies, councils, schools and universities can put the corrected, cited archive in front of every member and patron — access arranged around your rooms, your users and your projects, with a real person at the other end of the arrangement.

Who institutional access is for

Historical societies

Member access for research nights and projects, plus a home for the documents your members lodge.

In practice: members lodge documents and the corrected files stay credited to the society.

Public libraries

Patron access in the local-history room, sized for a branch and its reading-room traffic.

In practice: a walk-in researcher searches and unlocks records from a reading-room terminal — no account of their own.

Councils & schools

Local-history curriculum and heritage work, straight from primary sources.

In practice: the original scan sits beside the corrected text, so every claim a student makes is citable.

Universities

Cohort access for colonial-history and digital-humanities work.

In practice: a whole class or research group works the corpus at once, with export limits sized for real projects.

What an institutional plan includes

Access

  • Multiple usersSeat-based, or IP-range access for your whole building — patrons sign in to nothing.
  • Public-terminal optionAn open reading-room terminal, no account required.
  • Higher limitsMore unlocks and exports than any individual plan.

Service

  • OnboardingSet-up for your staff and volunteers, walked through with you.
  • Usage reportingFigures for your committee or funding body, when you need them.
  • Commissioned researchReports on subjects you nominate, written to order.

What it costs

Historical society

Member access for societies and family-history groups.

fromA$750 / yr

Library

Branch access, including the public-terminal option.

fromA$1,500 / yr

Custom

Councils, universities, multi-branch services and special projects — sized to your users.

fromA$2,500 / yr

Every arrangement starts with a conversation, not a form — write to office@colonialrecord.com.au and tell us who needs access. Individual plans are on the pricing page.

For your due diligence

  • Every record is cited to its original page — the unaltered scan sits beside every transcription, so patrons can verify what they read. See how accuracy works and how to cite.
  • Uncertainty is always shown. Notices carry confidence ratings, and possible-but-unproven matches are labelled as exactly that — fit for teaching sound research practice.
  • No third-party trackers or ad pixels. Patron activity on a library terminal is between the patron and the Record — the policy is written to be read.
  • Independently Australian. The Record is built and kept by Blue Horse Studios Pty Ltd (ABN 37 689 863 670) in Bendigo, Victoria — who keeps the Record.

Tell us about your reading room, your members or your cohort, and we'll propose the shape that fits.

Discuss access See individual plans

Or write to the office directly: office@colonialrecord.com.au