After only 6 months of work, Carsphairn Heritage Group (CHG) have completed Phase 1 of their ambitious plan to digitise their entire archive of local photographs, documents and artefacts, finishing well ahead of schedule.
Work began in February 2019 to quantify the collection, donated to the Group over a 30 year period by people with a connection to the local area. 13 volunteers have been involved, giving up hundreds of hours of their time to sort, record and upload items, which ranged from clothing, medals and tools to family histories, photographs, poems and letters home from the Front.
34 items which were difficult to handle, large or very delicate, were sent away for professional processing, allowing volunteers to focus on items which could fit on their own domestic scanners.
Thanks to funding from Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership’s ‘Our Heritage’ Small Grants Scheme, the Group have already uploaded over a 1000 items, all of which are now available to view at https://carsphairn.org/CarsphairnArchive/
The Group held their first DigiDay in March 2019 which saw 9 volunteers scanning their way through over 600 photographs of local people, places and pastimes, before being treated to a delicious lunch supplied by Carsphairn Tearooms. The online archive has already had a local and international impact with emails of gratitude and offers of further material coming from as far away as British Columbia (Canada), Georgia (US), and Sydney (Australia).
Karen Hall, Chair of CHG, said
“We are very grateful to Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership for their support, to Carsphairn Community Council who host the website where you can find the archive and to Carsphairn Renewable Energy Fund (CREFL) for funding the running costs of the Heritage Centre during this process. I’d also like to thank our small but dedicated team of volunteers for all their efforts to date. We’d also be delighted to hear from new volunteers.”McNabb Laurie, Galloway Glens Team Leader, said:
The Carsphairn.org website is well established and ideal to host this information, making it accessible to people everywhere. It is lovely to hear of the global connections being made, a good reminder of how well Galloway is connected to the rest of the world. I recommend anyone interested in Galloway history to view the resource at www.Carsphairn.org
We were able to make this award thanks to lottery players around the UK, and thanks to support from Dumfries & Galloway Council.It’s not too late to get involved as Phase 2 of the project is due to start this Autumn, recording the remainder of the archive. The Group will be hosting another DigiDay on Wednesday 30 October 2019, between 10am – 3pm at Carsphairn Heritage & Craft Centre, where you can help with the process. If you’re interesting in getting involved in any way, please contact Karen Hall for more details by emailing [email protected].
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