Over the past 12 months, Shoalhaven City Council has worked with five volunteer-led museums and historical societies in the region to support the digitisation of their collections. This includes Lake Tabourie Museum, Berry Historical Society, Kangaroo Valley Historical Society and Milton Ulladulla Historical Society.
The digitisation of these collections is funded by the NSW Government, through the Regional Cultural Fund. Shoalhaven City Council is one of nine local governments funded to digitise significant artworks, museum objects and archives in their regions.
The fund supports the development of cultural infrastructure in regional NSW. All projects adopted a hub and spoke partnership model to deliver their projects. Regional museums and historical societies shared equipment and expertise to digitise significant objects.
The results of some of this work now features on Storyplace, a new website developed for museums and galleries to tell important stories from throughout regional NSW. The stories are inspired by the digitised objects from the collections of regional museums, galleries and Aboriginal Keeping places as part of this project.
The Storyplace project, managed by Museums and Galleries of NSW, employed professional staff and storytellers to research, write, edit and publish stories directly on the online platform.
The website provides a long-awaited platform to promote the importance and value of regional collections to be enjoyed now and well into the future. Storyplace is a living and evolving archive, investigating people, places, communities and cultures from all over NSW.”
Storyplace has been funded by the NSW Government through the Regional Cultural Fund.