Ballarat has excelled at this year's Community History Awards, with three projects taking home awards and several others commended and shortlisted.
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The Victorian Premier's History Award went to Phil Roberts for his book Avenue of Memories, a collaboration with the Arch of Victory/Avenue of Honour Committee which detailed the construction of the precinct.
Mr Roberts said it was a surprise to be recognised, for his 17th book.
READ MORE: Stories from Ballarat's Avenue of Honour
"Each time you learn more as you meet a new group of people," he said.
"It's challenging but also very rewarding - there's always much, much more to find out."
He said his next project involved Ballarat's Bartlett textile manufacturers.
"The thing about writing history now is that it evolves, you don't go chronologically and say this happened then that happened, that's quite labourious and not very interesting, so you look for themes and the changes, and cause and effect," he said.
"You look for the context, where the industry's happening, or what's happening in World War 1, for example."
Jan McGuinness won the Cultural Diversity Award for her book La Nostra Storia, an exploration of Italian culture in Ballarat.
More than 50 people were interviewed for the book, which took years of preparation - the book was written with the assistance of the Ballarat Italian Association, and tells the stories of several prominent people who built a life in a new land.
Association president Chez Dichiera said when the book was released, "the stories needed to be told".
The Multimedia Award went to Way Back When's project with the City of Ballarat, a self-guided audio tour of the Town Hall.
If These Walls Could Talk involves QR codes that link to interviews and photos.
"It's really exciting to get to work on projects like this, to do something that hopefully meets a need but provides a different interpretation other than traditional signage" Way Back When historian Lucy Bracey said.
"It's pretty big, we weren't alone in this, we had a great web developer, Dimity Mapstone, and a sound engineer, Russell Goldsmith.
"There was a great opportunity to share the different works people have been doing, and bring a greater audience for that, and also to just recognise the hard work that goes into it all."
Mr Roberts added there is a lot of responsibility when it came to writing historical books.
"It becomes the record, the document, and if you're a bit careless, that means that people don't rely on what you've written," he said.
Not For Self But All: A History of the Art Gallery of Ballarat Association by Anne Beggs-Sunter was commended in the local history - small publication category, while Fred Cahir's My Country All Gone - The White Men Have Stolen It: The Invasion of Wadawurring Country 1800-1870; The Smallpox on Ballarat: Nineteenth-Century Public Vaccination on the Victorian Goldfields by Nicola Cousen; The Ballaarat Mechanics Institute's Talking Shop: Ballarat in Business and City Life; Narrow Ways: Lanes in the CBD of Ballarat by Elizabeth A Wood all made the shortlist.
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