Lambton County kicked off it’s 175th anniversary year recently, launching a new online database of photos and historical materials from its museums and archives.
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“It’s a good way for the community to dive into the past a little bit and learn a little bit more about what the past was like in Lambton County,” said the county’s museums, gallery and archives manager Laurie Webb.
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“And also what the museums and archives do to help preserve that,” she said.
The new system, accessible at lambtonmuseums.pastperfectonline.comincludes digital records of more than 8,000 historical artifacts, photographs and documents from the county’s heritage and oil museums, and archives, she said.
It’s the “tip of the iceberg” of all the artifacts in the museum and archive collections, said archivist Nicole Aszalos.
“The great thing is it can be continually updated,” she said, adding the project has been years in the making as materials have been cataloged and digitized.
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Another online database that dates to 2006 isn’t as easy to use, but will continue to be available, Webb and Aszalos said.
That one has about 30,000 records, Aszalos said.
“We are actively trying to transition the material into the new software and, obviously with tens of thousands of records, it takes time,” she said.
That database has been well used during the years, Webb said.
“But this new system is definitely a little more user friendly for people,” as well as faster, more intuitive, and better shows the links between different collections, she said.
For instance, there are links to related items and artifacts, she said.
“So, it’s really improving the access for the community to the material we collect (and) gives the community a good idea of what … we have in our collection,” she said.
The county officially was formed with the Baldwin Act on May 30, 1849, a county report says.
Along with a celebration planned for the June 5 county council meeting, other anniversary initiatives include planting 175 trees at the Oil Museum of Canada, offering free admission there, at the Lambton County Archives and Lambton Heritage Museum, reintroducing the Doors Open event in the fall , and renaming a Lambton Shared Services Center meeting room the Ottissippi room (meaning “clear water”) to recognize traditional Indigenous place names, it says.
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