Treasure Trove

Thames local, Nicole Thorburn is the current intern at The Treasury, overseeing projects that include cataloguing the collection records for an online database.

She's joined at the old Carnegie Library Building by around 40 volunteers, who spend their days indexing, cataloguing and preparing records for the collection, which includes fumigating and meticulously cleaning boxes of dusty books and more than five tons of newspapers, as well as helping visitors locate material in the archives.

The Coromandel Heritage Trust took over the lease on the 100-year-old building in 2007, as a home was needed for the growing collection of records offered by families and organisations from around the district. Once the collection was safely settled into the upgraded building, fundraising began to construct a $1.1 million modern, climate-controlled facility next door to house the most fragile material.

“The great thing about The Treasury,” Nicole says, “is that it was started by the local community and it’s still run by the local community, telling the community’s own stories.”