25 November 2016

MEDIA RELEASE

Manawatū Heritage digital repository wins innovation award

Palmerston North City Council has congratulated its Manawatū Heritage project team which won the 2016 ALGIM Excellence in Innovation award for its new digital repository. The award was announced at the ALGIM annual awards held in Auckland earlier this week.

“What’s so great about the digital repository is its ability to enable our community to play a key role in recording and sharing our history,” says Palmerston North City Council’s General Manager - Libraries and Community Services Debbie Duncan.

Mrs Duncan said she is thrilled for her team who started work on the Manawatū Heritage project three years ago.

“The forefront of their design and technical specifications was providing a user-friendly digital repository that met the needs and wants of our community,” she says.

“Key aspects such as its ease of use, functionality, being cloud-based and mobile friendly, all encourage its use. People are able to search and share, and upload items of interest and importance that we can enjoy and treasure for a long time.”

Manawatū Heritage is a Libraries and Community Services unit initiative and was launched earlier this year. It is an online repository which allows users to participate in digitally collecting, creating and curating today’s stories and tomorrow’s heritage.

The judges of the award commented that the project showed great stakeholder engagement, forward thinking, and was future-proofed with the potential for it to be reused in other ways.

Users of Manawatū Heritage can view and use it as a research hub, an exhibition space, or a content creation space. Subject to copyright, they can share and use any information they find and upload with speed and ease.

A project team made up of staff with a wide range of skills worked alongside designers and developers My Tours. They were careful to design a tool with features and function that would meet their users’ needs.

The digital repository can be found at https://manawatuheritage.pncc.govt.nz/

ENDS

NOTES:
Manawatu Heritage’s website address is: https://manawatuheritage.pncc.govt.nz/
ALGIM is the Association of Local Government Information Management.

© Scoop Media