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Darren Peacock and Jill Mackenzie

Building Community Through Digital Outreach

History SA is a State Government agency that promotes public awareness and engagement with the history of South Australia through museums, public programs and online services.

The new SA Community History portal (www.community.history.sa.gov.au) promotes the public history activities of the hundreds of small community museums, historical societies, archives, libraries and other organisations that collect, exhibit and promote the history of South Australia.

The portal provides integrated online access to current information about South Australia’s museums, historical societies, archives and other organisations, including a Directory of organisations, an events calendar and news about community museums and community history activities, collections and research within South Australia.

The portal is now implementing video-based training and events to build the expertise and professional practice of this widely dispersed, primarily volunteer community.  This paper explores some of the opportunities and challenges of this approach.

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Darren Peacock's Biography
Darren Peacock (Sweet Technology) is a consultant, researcher and teacher in digital information management and design. He is the Director of Sweet Technology Pty Ltd, an independent informatics consultancy based in Adelaide. Darren has worked and consulted within museums in Australia, Europe and North America. He was formerly Director of Information and Communications Technology at the National Museum of Australia.

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Jill Mackenzie's Biography
Jill MacKenzie (History SA) has worked in various museums in Western Canada. In 2005 she came to Adelaide on an internship program supported by the Canadian Museums Association and Foreign Affairs Canada. Since then she has worked at the Migration Museum and South Australian Maritime Museum as a curator, and in 2008 she took on the role of Public Programs Officer for History SA. Jill has since co-ordinated the South Australian History Festival, a major public event with more than 300 community organisations participating each year.