Funding allocated to support regional digital collections

A new digital platform that will share regional Western Australia's extensive collection of cultural and natural material with a worldwide audience is being developed, as part of the McGowan Government's $1 million commitment to promote regional museums and collections.
Culture and the Arts Minister David Templeman today announced the digital platform, to be called 'Collections WA', would be built and managed by the Western Australian Museum.
The platform will be a shared resource available for use across the entire collections sector, including museums, galleries, libraries, archives, historical societies and other community organisations, to make all Western Australian collections more accessible.

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Mr Templeman today also presented the Australian Museums and Galleries Association Western Australia (AMaGA Western Australia) with a $301,000 Lotterywest grant to roll out an extensive two-year training program for regional collecting organisations, to support and enhance the digital platform.
This will include a series of regional workshops over two years, onsite visits and follow-up support for collecting groups, as well as building a master list of existing collections and bulk uploads of digital information to the Collections WA platform.
AMaGA Western Australia currently provides professional services to develop and sustain more than 400 collecting organisations across WA, with the aim of encouraging wider audiences to engage more with our unique heritage and culture.
Work to develop a dedicated tourism portal for regional collections is also underway as part of a McGowan Government election commitment. The portal will be linked to the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse, a multi-channel distribution network for tourism data that is currently published by more than 200 online distributors.