PENARTH Library is appealing for people to bring in old photographs to build up a digital history of the town.

The library is holding a Digital Heritage Day on Monday, January 20, where people can bring in old family photographs and have them digitised and added to an online library.

The initiative is a joint collaboration between People’s Collection Wales, the Vale of Glamorgan Council and the Welsh Government and is taking place in libraries across the Vale of Glamorgan.

A Digital Heritage Day has already been held at Barry Library and received a “good response” from people.

Marcus Payne, senior librarian at Penarth Library, encouraged people to bring in old photo albums of Penarth and said that everyone would have their old photos returned to them

“The aim is to build up a digital collection for the whole of Wales,” he said.

“People’s Collection Wales have their own website where these will be available to be viewed."

All of the equipment used to digitise photos will be set up on January 20, but if people can’t make that day they will also be pop into the library later that week to contribute to the project.

“The key thing is to make it accessible and to make sure that lots of people with collections of photos in their attics and closets get the opportunity to bring them down,” he said.

“We don’t take the photos from them, they get to keep them.”

He added that the scheme had already proven popular with a “good response” in Barry and that he hoped the same would happen in Penarth.

“It will help people doing family history research, as well as school children that are required to know about their local community and want to find out more about the history of their town,” he added.

People that donate photos and other items to the project are asked to give as much information as they can about the photos to build up metadata for the digital database.

This can include who is in each photo and where and when it was taken.

“They might bring in photos of Penarth in general or social groups meeting up,” said Mr Payne.

“It helps to bring history alive and we are hoping to be part of that process.”

Penarth historian Alan Thorne gave his full backing to the project.

“Pictures speak a thousand words and their significance is essential,” he said.

“It is a marvellous idea and will keep people interested in the history of the town.”

He added: “As long as the photos are captioned correctly it is a great idea.”

The Digital Heritage Day will be open from 10am until 4pm on Monday, January 20, at Penarth Library.