The Royal Western Australian Historical Society Inc. (RWAHS) is a not-for-profit organisation whose Vision is that:

“present and future generations will have access to the history of Western Australia”.

The Society’s Technology Committee understood that honouring this vision necessitated a strong digital presence on the Web, to stimulate greater interest in Western Australian history and attract new members by enhancing the accessibility and knowledge of the Society’s collections and its services. The RWAHS successfully won a $140,000 Lotterywest grant to progress this goal, and back in March we attended the launch of the project.

Gaia Resources Kehan Harman and Alex Chapman together with convenor of the Technology Committee Helen Henderson and RWAHS president Sally Anne Hasluck at the project launch. Photo: Wendy Lugg

Gaia Resources is helping the Society realise their vision by significantly upgrading the Society’s existing digital Museum, Photograph, Library collections (as well as the Public Memorials dataset) into a new web-enabled collections management system, using Collective Access.  This is the same database software we have been using to implement an integrated CMIS at the WA Museum and in a pilot projects with the CSIRO.

At the same time, we are reconfiguring the RWAHS website to provide access to this data for over 70 affiliated agencies in metropolitan and regional WA as well as to national and international institutions and their researchers. Along with easier site maintenance will come a fresh look and feel to the website and a brand-new online bookshop and archival products catalogue with an e-commerce facility.

Our team (Kehan, Ben, Piers and myself) have been really enjoying working with the team at RWAHS, and it has been gathering some great media attention in the local papers as well!

The recent Post article outlining the project

We’re well on track with the project and will be posting more on delivery at the end of the financial year.

Alex

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