ETHEL Waters stands on tiptoes as she struggles to pull out a book from the top shelf.

“I’m getting shorter, and I can’t reach things as well as I used to,” she explained.

Her Tuesday battle with the bookcase is becoming a regular feature in her weekly volunteering role at the Footscray Historical Society.

Ms Waters, who joined the Footscray Historical Society in the early ’80s, is going through the local and daily newspapers and filing away important press cuttings about the area.

She points to a recent story about the Eddington report.

“In 20 years, someone might by interested in that,” she said.

The Footscray Historical Society, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary later this year, fields lots of inquiries from fellow historians and families whose ancestors used to live in the area.

The society has published books on the City of Maribyrnong’s history and participates in lots of school and resident tours.

“We are preserving the present for the future. We’re not just interested in the 19th century,” secretary Catherine Reichert said.

Ms Reichert said the society’s 10 founding members started the group up in 1969 because of concerns that much of the municipality’s heritage was being lost.

The founders pitched in to buy the old National Bank of Australia building, now called Ecrildoune, on the corner of Hyde and Napier streets for the society’s headquarters.

Among other original features is the old bank vault, which now holds the society’s collection of historical tomes, old newspapers, voter’s rolls and glass slides.

Today, the society manages to stay self-funded thanks to its 100-strong membership and the rental from the upstairs studio.

The society commemorated the purchase in 2001 with its own founder’s garden, flanked by 10 pine trees to represent the founders.

Volunteer Linda Longley joined 10 years ago when she inquired about the original owners of her new house in Cowper St.

Ms Longley has helped upload the old card indexing system onto the web. She also writes and edits the society’s newsletter.

“We’ve brought the society into the new age,” she said.