The Wairarapa Archive has launched its new web-based digital photograph database, called  ‘Picture Wairarapa.’  The new system is based on the archives current database but researchers will be able to check through the digital images as a separate search, saving a lot of time.

At the moment there are nearly 2000 images on the system, but numbers are expected to quickly increase.

Archivist Gareth Winter says the internet has changed the way people search for images.

“In the past collections such as ours would have been very hard for researchers to locate.  Now historians and family searchers can access our records easily.”

The next stage of the archive’s digital project is to add these images to ‘Matapihi’, the nationwide federated database of cultural heritage images.

Photo courtesy of Wairarapa Times Age