Manning Valley Historical Society has been awarded a $6600 federal Community Heritage Grant to fund a significant assessment of the archival and photograph collection at Wingham Museum.
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The grant was announced at the National Library of Australia in Canberra on October 25, 2016.
The historical society was one of 77 community groups and organisations from around Australia, and the only one from our region, to receive a the grant this year to assist in the identification and preservation of community owned but nationally significant heritage collections.
As part of the grant, Manning Valley Historical Society president Barbara Waters attended a three-day intensive preservation and collection management workshop held at the National Library, the National Archives of Australia, the National Museum of Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra.
Barbara Waters said the grant was important in supporting the effort to preserve Manning Valley Historical Society’s collection at the grassroots level.
“While the grant provides the funds, the workshop offers the expertise to help us protect our collection and make it accessible while it remains in the local context,” Barbara said.
The funds provided to the museum will allow for historian Dr Roslyn Russell, who specialises in assessing the significance of collections, to visit the Wingham Museum in 2017 to look at what items and collections in the museum are of national, state and local significance.
“We know, we’ve got good collections, but it will be nice to have it verified and gauge of what importance they are,” Barbara said.
Following the assessment of the collection, the society is looking at applying for a grant to digitise its collection to allow digital copies to be viewed Australia wide.
“It was discussed (at the collection management workshop) that with digitising the actual hard copy remains in the museum. And I think that’s important, that things like that stay in the community,” Barbara said.
“It was three days of sheer pleasure, but it was hard work because there was so much in the presentations to absorb. And the networking was good. It was good to talk to people from museums very similar to ours and to listen to stories of libraries and art galleries, just to see what they are doing out there.”
“To me, as an untrained museum person with a passion for history, it was certainly a learning exercise. It was an honour to go down there and receive the award.”
