The donation of two substantial Compactus filing units to the East Gippsland Historical Society is helping it to make the most of limited space to better organise its vast archive of historic local artefacts and documents.
The Compactus units - which are designed to maximise storage space while providing easy access to stored items – were donated by East Gippsland Water following a digitisation of its records that meant the units were no longer required.
East Gippsland Water’s General Manager Customer, Community and Communications, David Radford, said he is delighted that the filing units are now being used at the Society’s Historical Museum and Regional Resource Centre in Bairnsdale to “protect, preserve and organise important East Gippsland relics and documents for future generations”.
“We thought the high-quality filing units – which might typically find their way into landfill – could find a second life at the Society’s Resource Centre, and we’re very pleased that they’re being put to good use for a very good cause,” Mr Radford said.
Volunteer staff at the Historical Society’s Museum and Resource Centre display and maintain a large collection of historic photographs, ephemera, memorabilia and reference materials at the museum, which is located in the 1892-built St Andrew’s College building in Macarthur Street, Bairnsdale.
East Gippsland Historical Society Treasurer, Ian Hollingsworth, said East Gippsland Water’s donation of the Compactus units has provided the museum with “significantly more space for our back-of-house collections”.
“One of the units is being used for safely storing and organising hundreds of physical artefacts, while the other is quickly being filled with documents dating right back to the early days of white settlement in East Gippsland,” Mr Hollingsworth said. “We are very grateful that East Gippsland Water thought to donate the units, and they are certainly being put to good use.”
Some of the artefacts being stored in the units include an original set of brass scales used for weighing gold in Bullumwaal during East Gippsland’s 1850s to 1870s gold rush, as well as a box of fascinating branded objects – including timber coat hangers, brushes, tins, and even a boomerang – from the old days of retail commerce in Bairnsdale.
“Many of the relics and documents here have deep historical significance, and we are pleased to now have a better means for safely storing and cataloguing them,” Mr Hollingsworth said.
The East Gippsland Historical Society’s Historical Museum and Regional Resource Centre is located at 40 Macarthur Street, Bairnsdale and is open to the public on the first Sunday of each month, as well as every Monday to Wednesday from 10am to 3pm. To find out more, including admission prices, go to eastgippslandhistoricalsociety.com
East Gippsland Historical Society Treasurer, Ian Hollingsworth, with a box of branded artefacts from the early days of retail in Bairnsdale.
A brass scale used to weigh gold during the gold rush era is one of the artefacts being stored in the units donated to the Historical Society by East Gippsland Water.
A 1972 document detailing museum items dating back to the mid-1800s.
East Gippsland Historical Society Treasurer, Ian Hollingsworth, retrieves an archive folder from one of the Compactus filing units donated by East Gippsland Water.
The Historical Museum and Regional Resource Centre in Macarthur Street, Bairnsdale.