Push for state-wide digitisation of cultural works

A selection of the city's cultural works could soon be on show to the world via a proposed website to be hosted by Museums and Galleries of NSW (MGNSW).

MGNSW has received funding under the NSW Government Regional Cultural Fund for a digitisation research project to capture and tell stories from cultural collections held in regional NSW.

Collections and Stories, as the project is known, aims to reveal the strength and depth of NSW community cultural collections and broaden access to these by making them available digitally and through a single and uniquely engaging online portal.

Material will be largely drawn from collections held by museums and galleries in Orange and Broken Hill, with contributions from museums in the Albury, Wagga Wagga, Bathurst, Tamworth and Tweed Shire areas.

The project will serve as a test case to investigate how collection digitisation could be rolled out across the state and be sustainable.

Council's Museums and Gallery Manager, Tara Callaghan, said she was pleased Broken Hill was selected to contribute to the project.

"This project is particularly relevant to Broken Hill, given we recently received $433,359 through the Regional Cultural Fund to fund our own digitisation process," she said.

"I think it's great that the Government clearly has an interest in investigating how a digitisation scheme could be rolled out across the state, and we're more than happy to contribute to that process."

Michael Rolfe, CEO of MGNSW, said digitisation could offer a range of benefits to the State’s museums and galleries.

"Storytelling through objects lies at the heart of all museum work..." he said

"The lack of collection documentation in parts of the community museum and gallery sector in NSW has long been identified as a gap to be filled.

"Many community museums have a very small staff or are volunteer-run, and desperately need to improve the documentation of their collections in order to carry on running their physical space.

"The lack of standardised documentation and digitisation infrastructure also prevents the majority of the sector from providing online access to their collections."

A curator from MGNSW is expected to travel to the city this week to begin preliminary data collection for the project.