SLV LAB
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Historian & Hacker

Tim Sherratt (he/him)

Tim Sherratt is a historian and hacker who researches the possibilities and politics of digital cultural collections. Tim has worked across the cultural heritage sector and has been developing online resources relating to libraries, archives, museums and history since 1993. You can find him at timsherratt.au or on Mastodon as hcommons.social/@wragge.

In late 2025, Tim undertook a 12-week hybrid residency at State Library Victoria. He engaged the Library’s place-based collections – maps, directories, photos and newspapers – to build a series of web-based prototypes, collectively known as 'My Place', which allowed users to navigate the Library's collection in new ways. The project provided insights into the Library’s digital collections data model and demonstrated how digital tools can encourage digital scholarship using our material.


A portrait shot of a man (Tim Sherratt) with long grey hair wearing thick black glasses and a grey t-shirt

Articles

19th century maps from SLV's Collection overlaid on Melbourne City blocks
Exploring georeferenced maps from the SLV collectionTim Sherratt16.02.26
A section of a map from the 1800s of State Library Victoria laid on current day digital map of the same site.
My Place – exploring SLV collections through a street addressTim Sherratt09.02.26Making a web interface that surfaces directory records, maps, photos, and newspapers from the SLV collection related to an address search.
Man on a street corner in the 1970s with a vintage car - Fitzroy
Geolocating photos from the SLV's Committee for Urban Action collectionTim Sherratt03.02.26How the CUA browser was developed
Blue dots overlaid on a map of Melbourne
Exploring Victorian newspapersTim Sherratt18.12.25Newspapers are a vital source for local history. During my residency I pulled together some metadata relating to Victorian newspapers and put it on a map for easy exploration. Here's how.
A map of Victoria showing where newspapers have been published expressed as coloured dots
Counting down... (to the end of my SLV residency)Tim Sherratt04.12.25
interface showing two directory records from Sands & Mac
Some Sands & Mac tweaks thanks to ALTO and IIIFTim Sherratt04.12.25
Listings of names and address information on a directory page
A new way of searching Sands & MacTim Sherratt04.12.25All 24 volumes of the Sands & McDougall’s directories are now searchable.
A section of a map from the 1800s of State Library Victoria laid on current day digital map of the same site.
Turning the SLV's maps into data with Allmaps and some GLAM plumbingTim Sherratt04.12.25
Night mode version of the web browser developer console
Exploring SLV URLsTim Sherratt04.12.25
A man with long white hair wearing black glasses and a tshirt (Tim Sherrat) gesturing as he presents to a room of people in front of their laptops
Hacking the Library (in the best possible way) – notes from Code ClubDilan GunawardanaTim Sherratt25.11.25
Blue digital boundary boxes overlaid on a digital map of Victoria
Creating bounding boxes for parish maps in the SLV collectionTim Sherratt04.12.25
A laptop and a desktop screen side by side in an office - the laptop shows the SLV LAB logo on it, while the desktop displays a github repository
An introduction to the My Place projectTim Sherratt04.12.25

Resources

My Place – end of residency presentationMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
documentation
Tim Sherratt->
  • Mapping
  • Hacking
  • History
  • Linked open data
  • Open access
SLV digitised collections egg huntMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
codebase
Tim Sherratt->
  • Hacking
  • Open access
Add My Favourites to SLV websiteMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
codebase
Tim Sherratt->
  • Open access
  • Hacking
Display SLV IIIF urlsMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
codebase
Tim Sherratt->
  • Code
  • IIIF
  • Open access
Add links from SLV digitised items to entries in Wikimedia CommonsMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
codebase
Tim Sherratt->
  • Open access
  • Wikimedia
SLV–AllMaps userscriptMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
codebase
Tim Sherratt->
  • Code
  • Open access
AllMaps georeferencing code repositoryMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
codebase
Tim Sherratt->
  • Code
  • Open access
My Place demo apps code repositoryMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
codebase
Tim Sherratt->
  • Open access
  • Code
My Place code repositoryMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
codebase
Tim Sherratt->
  • Open access
  • Collections
Spatial database for My PlaceMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
dataset
Tim Sherratt->
  • Mapping
  • Linked open data
  • Open access
  • Collections
How to 'hack' a library website – a video tutorial by Tim SherrattMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
tutorial
Tim Sherratt->Dilan Gunawardana->Yeoseop Yoon->
  • Linked open data
  • Collections
Slides with notes from Tim Sherratt's technologist talk: My PlaceMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
documentation
Tim Sherratt->
  • Mapping
  • Open access
  • Hacking
  • History
  • Victorian history
Slides from Tim Sherratt's 'Hacking the Library' workshopMy Place – Tim Sherratt->
tutorial
Tim Sherratt->
  • Hacking
  • Collections
  • Digital literacy
Combining Wikidata and GLAM data – Tim Sherratt's WikiFest 2025 presentationConnecting collections with Wikimedia->
documentation
Tim Sherratt->
  • Open access
  • Linked open data

Collaborators