Earlier this week, the Western Development Museum (WDM) launched an online collection of Saskatchewan artifacts and over 9,000 of its library materials.
The task was undertaken by staff who wanted to take the WDM experience and make it accessible from home desktops and mobile phones.
WDM collections manager Julie Jackson said visitors will now be able to access their collections, located in five locations in the province, at any time and place as long as they have an internet connection.
“People are just (beginning) to test it out, (but there have been) really positive responses. People are excited,” Jackson said on Friday.
“You can search any of our artifacts across the four WDMs in Saskatchewan. It’s a little under 75,000 artifacts that you can access on that database.”
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Officials said the materials touch on all aspects of life in the province and boast one of the largest farm machinery collections in Canada.
“Of course it’s hard to make it to all of the WDM locations in North Battleford, Yorkton, Moose Jaw and Saskatoon. So, if you can’t physically go to those locations, you can see what they have,” Jackson said.
“We hold these collections for the people of Saskatchewan. This is Saskatchewan’s history, so we want everyone to see what we have.”
Jackson also said they hope to expand to include online exhibit tours within the next year or two.
-With files from Brenden Purdy