Coo-ees in Macquarie Rd, Springwood. Source: Blue Mountains Local Studies.

A NSW Local Studies Librarian meeting at Lithgow this week heard from WWI centenary projects at Mudgee, Lithgow and Orange (Mosman got a guernsey too). The Coo-ee March from Gilgandra, first of the recruiting marches organised in New South Wales in 1915, passed through Lithgow, so it was an appropriate venue to hear what NSW libraries are doing with their communities for the Anzac centenary.

Just a quick post to let you know that we’ve mapped on Historypin some images shared at Scan-a-thon, including the postcards of Vignacourt belonging to Allan Allsop.

Historypin allows you to see ‘than and now’ views using Google Maps and Google Street View — or with your phone if you’re lucky enough to be in situ in France!

Doing our bit photos on Historypin →

We’ll try to add more soon. Any suggestions?

Also, take a look at the work Historypin are doing with the Imperial War Museum around crowdsourcing and ‘The Participatory Museum’ concept.

Janet Croft, Gordon Lacey’s niece, brought in a number of items to the Scan-a-thon last year and you can access these from our Local Studies Digital Archive by searching for “Lacey”. Among the items were three diaries that we have uploaded to FromThePage for transcription. They are not particularly long, and the handwriting is easy to read. The first two cover the journey overseas, including Lacey’s observations of the Panama Canal, and the third tells of England and France.

Lots of people had questions about their photos and memorabilia at Scan-a-thon, so we turned to the wider, online community for help. We’ve learnt a lot!

I wrote a piece for Mosman Council’s website on the Open Day & Scan-a-thon held on 10 November. Librarians and volunteers felt it was a success, and we’ve had great feedback from those who brought in their treasures. We’ve also had a number of calls since the day, and more fascinating items brought in to the Library – and promised!