By Tyler Waugh, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Victoria Matthews, left, of Heritage NL works with Colleen Hanrahan of the Witless Bay Heritage Committee to scan images she shared at a May 2 scanning party at the Puffin Centre. More than 100 images were scanned during the event and will appear later this year in Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and Heritage NL digitized enough images from Witless Bay on May 2 to author an anthology of local history.
The Puffin Centre was host to a scanning party, one of several such events being conducted by Heritage NL this summer, that resulted in residents sharing more than one hundred images to scan for the archives.
“We were very pleased with the response today. Overall a successful event,” said Colleen Hanrahan, public relations officer for the Witless Bay Heritage Committee, who was approached by Heritage NL to organize and promote the community event.
Juliet Lanphear, industry development officer, for Heritage NL, said that next steps will include completing the metadata - the information about each photo like when it was taken, who and what is in the photo and who took the photo - for each scanned item and send the collection to be uploaded to the Memorial University Digital Archives Initiative (DAI).
“We organize the metadata into a large spreadsheet and send that to the DAI along with the digitized collection, which was scanned to archival standards. The DAI is a partner of Heritage NL and is a great choice since it's available online and stores the material for community groups,” said Lanphear.
“Since we are doing scanning parties all over the province this summer, it will likely take several months for us to complete the metadata for all the photos and for the DAI to upload them. But they should be available this fall.”
The scanning party was one component of the afternoon event that acted as a bit of a year-end event for the committee that drew more than 50 people. The event also saw displays of hooked rugs and a popular plant exchange that included indoor and outdoor plants where seeds and small trees were available.
“Of the trees, chestnuts were collected by a resident from the old tree on the property of the former convent and school. She managed to determine which nuts were good to plant and had small tree roots available," said Hanrahan. “For long-time community residents who attended school here the tree holds plenty of memories, so they were a hit.”
To learn more about the collections housed by the DAI that document Newfoundland and Labrador’s history and culture, please visit https://dai.mun.ca/.
