RUMFORD — The Rumford Historical Society explained to members Wednesday night its effort to electronically preserve its records.

Society member Nghia Ha talked about digitizing its archives, including dozens of photographs and stories.

Ha said the society is preparing to launch a website in May, but until then residents may go to the Maine Memory Network website to access the records of dozens of local towns, including Mexico, Peru and Dixfield.

“Right now, we don’t have a website, but you can access a list of photos that will be on our website once it launches in May,” Ha said. “We’re looking for more sport photographs or team photos of sports, so if you’re cleaning your house and you don’t know what to do with some of them, bring them to us. We’d love to use them.”

Ha said the plan is for her and member David Blouin to eventually “scan every photo that we have in the archives and put them all on the website.

“As many of you know, we have a lot of photographs, so it’ll take a while,” Ha said. “It’s worth it, though. These pictures tell stories. There’s a lot of history here.”

Society President Jane Peterson introduced Ha, saying she and Blouin have been scanning pictures and uploading them to the website, while Peterson, along with members Randall Smith, Terri Palmer and other residents have written stories to go along with the photographs and will explain them.

“If there’s any special type of topic that I’m not as familiar with, such as football, baseball or other sports, there are different individuals who are asked to write something up,” Peterson said after the presentation. “I left here in 1954 and didn’t come back until 1994, so I have a big gap.”

Peterson said she has had fun learning about Maine by going through the photographs again.

“They didn’t teach Maine history in elementary schools back then, so this is a lot more fun than learning about it in a big, fat green book,” Peterson said.

She said a $4,000 grant was awarded to RSU 10 by the Maine Historical Society, which has allowed Rumford and the other towns in RSU 10 to participate in efforts like this one.

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