The following announcement was written by the Tamworth Regional Gallery:

Thursday 5 May, 2022

In 2021 Tamworth Regional Council was funded to digitise historic objects and artworks from the region’s museums, and Tamworth Regional Gallery. The project was managed by Tamworth Regional Gallery who partnered with five local museums and collections: Tamworth Power Station Museum; Australian Country Music Hall of Fame, Rocks, Gems, Minerals and Fossil Collections; Moonbi Museum and Tamworth Regional Film and Sound Archive. The project provided training and support to the New England and North West museum sector as part of a process of learning, knowledge sharing, sustainability and digitisation to national standards.

Nine local government authorities were funded to digitise significant artworks, museum objects and archives in their regions through the NSW Government’s Regional Cultural Fund, which supports the development of cultural infrastructure in regional NSW.  All projects have adopted a hub and spoke partnership model to deliver their projects, whereby small museums and historical societies share equipment and expertise to digitise significant objects.

The results of some of this work will now feature on Storyplace, a new website developed by Museums & Galleries of NSW that tells important stories from throughout regional New South Wales.

These stories are inspired by the digitised objects from the collections of regional museums, galleries and Aboriginal Keeping places that are part of this project. Storyplace is a living and evolving archive investigating people, places, communities and cultures from all over New South Wales. Behind the scenes of Storyplace are many paid and volunteer staff who have worked together to document, conserve and digitise these important regional collections. Storyplace is the result of this dedicated work. 

Regional museums, galleries and Aboriginal cultural centres are the custodians of vast collections that represent the history of regional NSW and in turn the state and the Nation. Many collections contain the only records of some aspects of historic day-to-day life in regional communities. 

The Storyplace project, managed by Museums & Galleries of NSW, has employed professional staff and story tellers to work with these newly digitised collections. Their work includes researching, writing, editing and publishing stories to Storyplace. 

The Storyplace website is unique and it will make available to a wide online audience the knowledge regional collections represent, and encourage visitors to regional museums, galleries and cultural centres.

Brett Adlington, CEO, Museums & Galleries of NSW said: Launching Storyplace has been a long but rewarding journey. M&G NSW is pleased to be leading such an exciting project. But, it would not have been possible to develop and launch Storyplace without the support of our many regional partners – including small volunteer-run museums.  

“The website provides a long-awaited online platform to help promote the importance and value of regional collections. It has, and will continue to assist, the regional museum and gallery sector to progress some important collection care issues – such as digital preservation and collection documentation. Both actions make important contributions to ensuring regional collections can be more thoroughly used now, as well as enjoyed in the future.”

Storyplace has been funded by the New South Wales Government through the Regional Cultural Fund.

The final published website address is: https://storyplace.org.au