Heritage Marlborough helping digitise region’s history
Heritage Marlborough Archivist Wendy Harnett is working with Picton Museum’s Odelia van Leeuwen to digitise the museum’s collection
Some of Marlborough’s many historical treasures have come to light as part of an initiative by Council’s Heritage Marlborough team to help digitise local collections.
Heritage Marlborough have partnered with staff at the region’s small museums to use eHive, a web-based collection cataloguing system. Archivist Wendy Harnett has been working with Picton Museum to assist with uploading photos and archives into the system.
“Picton Museum has a large photo collection, which includes some real treasures. I have been working with research assistant Odelia van Leeuwen to upload these to eHive while I’ve been digitising some of their archives for them,” Wendy said.
The museum’s archives include items such as the original plans of Marlborough World War II military camps, original plans and aerial photos of Marlborough Sounds WWII defence installations including gun emplacements, Waikawa and Picton Tribal Committee minute books from the 1940s to the 1960s and a Railways Department Picton School train service register from 1945 to 1959.
“By helping to upload some of their collection, Picton Museum now has examples they can use of how to add more themselves,” Wendy said.
“eHive is a great web-based system that allows local museums to create good quality documentation of their collections and, of course, find everything easily and make their collections more accessible to the general public,” Wendy said.
