PRECIOUS local photos will achieve digital immortality thanks to government funding.
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Bathurst District Historical Society has received $2000 from the NSW Government to preserve important images from its extensive collection.
“A volunteer has been digitising our smaller prints over the last four years, but we don’t have the equipment to do the larger prints,” the society’s honorary photographic curator Mary Fletcher said.
The society has more than 22,000 photos and about 6000 of the smaller prints have been digitised, according to Ms Fletcher.
“We have probably got about 500 large prints to do,” she said.
“A lot of the photos we have are negatives, so we won’t be doing those.
“But we’ve got a glass plates collection as well that we’re going to have digitised.”
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NSW Spatial Services will be doing the digitising work for the large prints.
“They came down and had a look at the prints that we have and said that they could do them, so we are going to give them the prints in lots - say, 20 at a time, something like that,” Ms Fletcher said.
She said the society hopes to have the project finished by February next year and the photos will then be available on the society’s website for people to order a copy.
The large prints, which have been donated to the society over the years, include images of former prime minister Ben Chifley and soldiers in World War One.
“There is always a need for people to donate other photos that they might find in their own private collection,” Ms Fletcher said.
“We don't have a lot from the 1930s to the 70s. I guess it was harder times and people didn’t spend money on photography.”