A $45,000 grant for digitizing equipment will allow the state to preserve significant historical documents and items, incluing the papers of Adm. Robert E. Peary.

The grant, which came from the Davis Family Foundation and the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, was awarded recently to Tom Desjardin, historian for the Bureau of Parks and Lands of the Maine Department of Conservation.

The new equipment is already being used to archive Peary's papers at the Harpswell Historical Society and items from the Colonial Pemaquid Archaeological Collection in Bristol.

Peary's papers, which had been stored in closet in the admiral's home on Eagle Island in Casco Bay, range from grocery lists to a letter to President Theodore Roosevelt. The aim is to complete the digital archiving in time for April's 100th anniversary of Peary's expedition to the North Pole.

The equipment will also be available for use by other historical groups around the state, such as an effort in Bar Harbor to preserve original maps of Mount Desert.

After being scanned, the digital reproductions will be made available to the public through the Maine Historical Society's "Maine Memory Network" on the Internet.

The scanner can make particularly large images, such as those of large wall maps and artifacts, Desjardin said.