Congratulations are in order for several local Victorian Historical Societies, who were recently presented with the ‘Sir Rupert Hamer Records Management Award‘ 2010 for their contribution to the preservation of historical records.

Firstly the Brighton Historical Society was a recipient of this award for “providing greater understanding and access to community archives for cataloguing their entire map and plan collection”. Volunteers contributed more than 500 hours to digitise the maps and plans. The originals are now preserved and copies are made available for the public to use. Fantastic work!!

Congratulations also goes to the Bellarine Historical Society, who were recognised for their work digitising and indexing original school registers. The project began after a committee member retrieved from the rubbish old records from two schools closed in the 1990s. The historical society has also transferred the original registers, indexes and photographs to PROV, and written a brief history of each school.

So many records would be lost without groups like these historical societies. From the genealogists and historians around Australia (and overseas) who use your services, thank you for helping to preserve history!!