Over 130 years of Te Awamutu Brass Band history has been preserved for all of time thanks to a free digitisation service at Te Awamutu Museum.
The group was prompted to look into the service to care for their historic photographs, following a devastating fire at the Rotorua Brass Band rooms in 2022. The fire destroyed decades of photos and history.
Collections manager Sarah Dawe said the team were thrilled to help the group digitise 70 photographs that depicted past band members and events. Some of the photographs date back to the 1890s.
“Digitising historic material is important because it preserves the document or photograph for the future and makes the artifacts accessible for more people to view.”
The three-stage process includes cataloguing the photographs, checking the condition, and using specialist scanning equipment to take a highly quality scan.
Te Awamutu Brass Band bandroom steward Joyce Airey said it is great to know all our photos and stories are preserved for generations to come.
“I found the process very interesting, many of our old photos didn’t have dates, so we worked out the era and time based on the band’s uniforms. It was a great chance to review the Brass Band’s history.”
For more information on digitising your own photographs please email museum@waipadc.govt.nz.
