Lyttelton Museum to digitise thousands of historic photographs

Lyttelton Museum has received a major grant from the Lottery Environment and Heritage Commitee to scan thousands of historic images relating to the Lyttelton Harbour Whakaraupō area and community.

View of Lyttelton, 1860s
(Lyttelton Museum)

The Museum’s collection has been in storage since the 2010/11 earthquake sequence, when the entire collection was rescued from its historic premises on Gladstone Quay. Currently, concept designs for a new Museum building in Lyttelton are being developed by architects Warren & Mahoney. Meanwhile, the Museum team is working on a range of pop-up exhibitions and projects to bring the collection back to the community in innovative ways. The image digitisation project is one of these activities.

LHMS Vice-President Kerry McCarthy said, “We are absolutely delighted that we will be able to scan and preserve our wonderful collection of historic images. Not only will this protect our fragile originals, but we will also be able to make the pictures available in our online collection, so they can be accessed easily by anyone with an internet connection.” https://ehive.com search ‘Lyttelton Museum’.

The project will involve checking, scanning, cataloguing and re-housing the entire collection of negatives, prints, albums and artworks, and is expected to take at least a year.

Museum Society President Liz Grant said “We hope the community will add their stories and knowlege to the images through the online comment feature, and we’re excited to see what new stories come to light”.

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