WikiNorthia: Documenting life in Melbourne’s north
A partnership was set up in 2006 within the northern region of Melbourne, consisting of Darebin Libraries, Moreland City Libraries and Yarra Plenty Regional Library. The partners successfully secured funding from the Library Board of Victoria for a new project ‘WikiNorthia’ an online encyclopedia designed to document life in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne. These three library services encompass five local council areas including Moreland, Darebin, Banyule, Nillumbik and Whittlesea.
WikiNorthia is an innovative project that will encourage people across five local councils with rich cultural histories and diverse communities to get together and tell their stories providing a snapshot of life in the north of Melbourne now as well as the past. The project is the first of its type in Victoria and in fact Australia
The project will result in a wiki with contributions by a wide cross section of people living in the City of Moreland, the City of Darebin, the City of Banyule, the Shire of Nillumbik and the City of Whittlesea, which documents the present as well as recollections and histories. The generation and preservation of this information will be of a lasting benefit to the community.
In early 2012 Portable took on the task of improving the design of Wikinorthia to enable more functionality and ease of use and to ensure its ongoing sustainability. The site has been designed in a new system, WordPress which enables future development changes to be easily made.