Arapiles Historical Society secures history for the future
Arapiles Historical Society is one of the many organisations that recently received funds through Horsham Rural City Council’s Community Development Grants Program.
The Community Grant Program is an annual funding opportunity offering cash support to community organisations for special projects, improvements and initiatives. This year 70 per cent of applications were successful.
Located in Natimuk, Arapiles Historical Society received $5000 to put towards a major project; the digitisation of its entire collection.
This major project started with training in the digitisation process in February this year, which was offered by Australian Museums and Galleries Association, Western Victoria, and funded by the Victorian Regional & Creative Arts program.
The digitisation process includes consistently lighting, photographing, cataloguing and manually recording each item in the collection. The Community Grant received by Arapiles Historical Society now means it can purchase the equipment needed to carry out this work, including a camera, flash, backdrops and tripod.
The Arapiles Historical Society collection ranges from large farming equipment through to small household goods and photographs, dating from the 1800s through to more current times. One of the larger items in the collection is a horse-drawn wagon which brought European settlers to Natimuk from South Australia in the 1870s.
The grants officer of Arapiles Historical Society Elizabeth Both says receiving the Community Grant is “wonderful for us.”
Many of the items in the collection are very delicate, so having digital images to view instead of handling the real items will help safeguard them for the future.
“They are irreplaceable,” says Ms Both.
Members of the Arapiles Historical Society are looking forward to meeting again soon and will begin the digitisation works as soon as practical.
The digitised collection will be shared publicly online at the Victorian Collections website
