EMC Heritage Trust Project Grant Helps Rural Canadian Museum Preserve and Digitize Deteriorating Photos and Tapes

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Mar 05, 2013, 08:00 ET

Collection will be Available as an Online Resource for Researchers Looking for Information on Forestry, Farming and Mining

TORONTO, March 5, 2013 /CNW/ - EMC Corporation today announced The Lumby Historical Society in Lumby, B.C., was one of three organizations receiving an EMC Heritage Trust Project grant through the company's Information Heritage Initiative program. The fall cycle of the 2012 grants, totaling $30,000, supports projects that encourage the stewardship of cultural information in local communities.

Through its Information Heritage Initiative, EMC has donated more than $20 million to date to help advance the conservation of information heritage.

"Over the years the EMC Heritage Trust Project has helped preserve seven important local Canadian collections ranging from unique vintage films of the Canadian National Exhibition to historical artifacts from one of Canada's First Nations," said Michael Sharun, Managing Director of EMC Canada. "We're proud we are able to play a role in protecting and improving access to important heritage pieces for Canadian communities."

The Lumby Historical Society, which runs a small, rural museum, will use its $10,000 grant to digitize photographs and taped interviews depicting the 100-year history of the mining, logging and farming community. The grant will also help pay for a professional archivist to train the museum's volunteer staff on archival practices.

"The museum currently has one picture in its digital database and many photos and taped interviews with senior citizens on the history of Lumby that are deteriorating and threatened by flooding" said Robin Ledrew, director of the Monashee Arts Council, a non-profit society that promotes arts and culture in the Lumby area. "The Heritage Trust grant will allow us to digitize the collection, preserving it for future generations and making it more accessible to Lumby's citizens and outside researchers."

Once the collection is available online it will be tagged under subjects such as "farming," "forestry" and "gold mining" giving researchers and students around the world interested in such topics a new source of information.

Facebook page helped drive support

To help drive support for its effort to obtain an EMC Heritage Trust grant, the historical society created a Facebook page called, "Help Georgie go Digital." The page features sepia-toned photos of the museum's part-time volunteer, Georgie Hay, in a wig and vintage clothing working on a typewriter and standing by large document boxes.

The Facebook page and outreach to Lumby's local media helped drive community support for Lumby's grant proposal.

"Lumby is a small town, but people have a strong sense of community pride and an interest in the area's history," Ledrew said. "Two books of Lumby anecdotes and photos we produced still generate commissions and we publish a calendar every year that features a selection of the museum's photo collection."

The EMC Information Heritage Initiative program was founded in 2007 to recognize organizations and individuals that protect and preserve cultural information from around the world through digitization, allowing readily accessible online research and education. Using the same criteria for excellence that guide the initiative, the EMC Heritage Trust Project was created to recognize and support people and projects that practice and inspire the digital stewardship of the world's information heritage.

The EMC Heritage Trust Project grant recipients were selected based on the following criteria: potential size of the audience that would benefit from access to the information they are seeking to protect; the at-risk status of the information and why it is urgent to digitize; and how beneficial the EMC grant would be to the overall success of the project.

The EMC Heritage Trust Project will continue in 2013. For more information on the application process for the EMC Heritage Trust Project, visit: http://www.canada.emc.com/corporate/sustainability/strengthening-communities/heritage.htm.

About EMC

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset - information - in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com

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Previous Canadian Winners:
U'Mista Cultural Society: http://canada.emc.com/about/news/press/canada/2008/03182008.htm
CNE Archives: http://canada.emc.com/about/news/press/canada/2009/20090826.htm
ARCHEION: http://canada.emc.com/about/news/press/canada/2010/20100510.htm
Education Heritage Museum: http://canada.emc.com/about/news/press/canada/2010/20100510.htm
C.B. "Bud" Johnson Library: http://canada.emc.com/about/news/press/canada/2011/10112011-library-digitize.htm
The Reach Gallery Museum Abbotsford: http://canada.emc.com/about/news/press/2012/20121023.htm

SOURCE: EMC Corporation