City to dust off heritage

By Shaun Inguanzo
THE CITY of Greater Dandenong is establishing a committee to oversee the management of cultural and heritage items otherwise gathering dust.
And local history and cultural buffs will have the chance to be a part of it.
The council will sift through a vast collection of historic items in its possession and return some to their original owners while keeping valuable ones for its own catalogued collection.
The collection will be available to view on the Internet once it is all processed, the council says.
Councillors last week agreed to start a collections committee to resurrect the items from storage, select which are significant to the city, and make them available for the community to see.
The mayor of Dandenong Youhorn Chea said the collection was vast and varied.
“The collection has been formed over a number of years and includes gifts and donations from various political, cultural or other delegations,” Cr Chea said.
“In the past three to four years, a considerable amount of work has been done by council staff and industry professionals to improve processes and practices to manage the collection.
“The information (that has been processed to date) is available through the library’s website.
“The collections committee will assist with identifying the significance of items and those which are deemed as not having any significance to the Greater Dandenong community will be returned to the original donor or transferred to other bodies such as the State Government or Public Records Office.”
Residents interested in being part of the committee can submit an expression of interest to the council.
No qualifications or experience in heritage is required.
Contact Ms Ro Gaetjens on 9239 5141 for a copy of the selection criteria and an application form.