For as long as she can remember, Simone Taylor says she has been fascinated with history.
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"I've always loved history. Even as I kid I would drag everyone to see the museum.
"I love the little things like finding out how people dressed, what they ate. The day to day stuff that gets lost as technology changes," Ms Taylor said.
Ms Taylor is the new local studies officer at the Dubbo branch of the Macquarie Regional Library.
It's a position which is part researcher, part historian and part admin worker, but Ms Taylor said her favourite part of the job was working with the public and discovering information she never knew.
Since starting as local studies officer four weeks ago, Ms Taylor said she had helped someone find where their ancestors had been buried and scoured old maps to find out the location of a fuel depot from World War II.
Ms Taylor, who has a background in museum studies and heritage, said there weren't many positions available for someone in her field.
She said she was drawn to the local studies officer role because it contained a nice mix of duties, but hearing she had been chosen for the position was a shock.
"I nearly fell off my chair. I was really excited. I was working as a waitress at a cafe in Melbourne and I was just opening the doors when I found out so my boss was the first person to know," Ms Taylor said.
In her first month, Ms Taylor said she had been focusing her time on getting to know the collection, processing donations from the public and getting things categorised.
"I'm really excited to get to know the collection more and have things on the database."
She is currently working on extremely fragile documents from the 1870s, which she said is one of the earliest and most fragile documents in the collection.
The documents have to be encased in special archival plastic which don't release damaging gases and further deteriorate the papers.
Ms Taylor said the history collection was in the long process of becoming digital, allowing those with a library card to access the archives- including the historical maps, old newspapers and photographs- online.
"If you want to know where your great-great grandmother is buried I can look it up pretty quick," she said.
With the anniversary of the Galipolli landing during World War I approaching, Ms Taylor said she was currently looking for anyone with historical documents or photographs from people in the region.
The items can either be donated, or copied and digitalised for those who still wish to keep their documents.
