Emeritus professor Lachy Paterson is returning to his hometown tomorrow to deliver a talk to Whakatāne & District Historical Society members and interested public about digitising old community newspapers.

The address will be given at the Whakatāne District Council Research and Archive Centre on Boon Street tomorrow at 2pm.

Mr Paterson, who grew up in Whakatāne where his dad worked at the local paper mill, is a a trustee of the Preserving Local History and Educational Trust.

The trust is a registered charity whose aim is to identify and digitise historic newspapers, especially those at risk, and make them available to the public.

One of its most recently completed projects being the digitisation of Opotiki News material (1951-1972 & 1981) held at the Opotiki Museum.

This is now available publicly online at https://preservinglocalhistory.recollectcms.com