Libraries Are Helping Patrons Digitize!

Libraries Are Helping Patrons Digitize!

We all hear how important it is to digitize items as a means of preservation and sharing and yet, we can be challenged to make that happen.  In the past, one had to purchase equipment to digitize items or drop off (or mail off) to pay services to get something converted.  Many years ago, I mailed (with tracking) slides and 8mm films to get them converted to print negatives and VHS tapes, respectively.  Obviously, I now need to convert those formats to digitized format to better ensure future access.

With that in mind, it’s been wonderful to read about some library initiatives where digitization equipment is made available to the public for FREE.

For example, the D.C. Public Library now has a Memory Lab -- The DC Public Library’s New “Memory Lab” Lets You Digitize Old Photos and Videos.

At the Memory Lab … anyone with a DC Public Library card can digitize their personal archives for free. Previously inaccessible VHS tapes, floppy discs, audio cassettes, and photo negatives can now be viewed on a computer screen and shared on a thumb drive, giving new life to things that seemed lost to time and changing technologies.

The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has Makerspace. This space has many types of equipment available including VHS to digital conversion, VHS to DVD conversion, cassette tape to digital conversion, slide and image scanner, and more.

The Brooklyn Library in its Info Commons space has scanners and equipment “to convert analog media (VHS videocassettes, audiocassettes and vinyl records) to digital files.

How about the Kalamazoo (MI) Public Library and its Digital Lab, The Hingham (MA) Public Library and its collection of “conversion equipment,” the Lexington (KY) Public Library collection of Digital Studio Equipment, or the Bucks County (PA) Library System where you can convert photos and videos to digital formats!  The list truly goes on … just search on library digital conversion equipment and many public and university libraries with such are revealed.

Both smaller and larger library systems seem to be embracing making digitization equipment available to the community!  This is wonderful news for genealogists and family historians.  Now, instead of purchasing your own equipment or using pay services, all you need is a bit of time, an appointment, and to be armed with all that you want to convert!

It’s exciting to see on the internet how many public libraries are now making digitization equipment available to patrons.

I just need my local library to jump on the bandwagon.

Does a library near you have digitization equipment that patrons can use?  Give a shout out to it!

What personal photos, videos, audio tapes, documents, etc., have you had digitized via a library or pay service?

Editor’s Note: Consider also reading NARA Keeps on Innovating -- Innovation Hub now open!

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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

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Local Project Digitizes Invaluable Documents

Local Project Digitizes Invaluable Documents

We frequently talk about digitization as a way to preserve documents while often making them more accessible to researchers.  Digitization also serves as a backup in case disaster strikes.

Read how one local genealogy society learned about the value of material which can be quickly destroyed by a hurricane, such as Hurricane Katrina, and put efforts into securing money for the equipment needed to digitize, organize, and index one-of-a-kind records -- Sampling History: Local library digital project sets trend for other public libraries.

… six years ago, members of the Jackson County Historical and Genealogical Society became keenly aware of the vulnerability of one-of-a-kind records, books, maps and photographs housed at the Pascagoula Public Library's Local Genealogy and History Department.

The department is the chief depository of local history and genealogy for the entire regional library system that serves the entire population of Jackson and George Counties.

Great to learn about a locally-sponsored initiative that will preserve these materials for future generations.

What locally funded and implemented digitization project are you aware of?

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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Microfilm is NOT on death's doorstep nor will be anytime soon

Image by OSU Special Collections & Archives, https://www.flickr.com/photos/osuarchives/2709973933

Used per Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0 Generic license

Though we are increasingly able to find digitized versions of microfilm which we can access from our favorite tech toys, there is much much more microfilm that we cannot access online.  This will remain true for the foreseeable future.

As mentioned in Wait a Minute, You Still use Microfilm? No, not all newspapers (please substitute any other kind of record here that you want to look at) are not all digitized these days.  Every week I look at microfilmed newspaper records after exhausting what I can access online.  The same is true for many other types of records which I can access on microfilm about 12 minutes from my house versus having to drive all over the state, region or country.

And, microfilm is for the most part more enduring than the material it reproduces – paper.  Paper likes to deteriorate and is susceptible to environmental conditions.  Microfilm can also be easily copied. Microfilm can take the abuse of being constantly handled. Microfilm inherently has a long life span.

Microfilm also has some advantages over digital media.  To give you a bit more perspective on the pros and cons, read Film or Scan? which gives a nice comparison on the costs and other factors associated with choosing whether to microfilm a collection or digitize one. 

Even NARA, with all of its digitizing initiatives continues to preserve records on microfilm.  

In an era of digitization, NARA continues to microfilm records because microfilm is a low-cost, reliable, long-term, standardized image storage medium. The equipment needed to view microfilm images is simple, consisting of light and magnification. The medium has a life-expectancy of hundreds of years.

So, don’t expect to be attending a memorial service for microfilm anytime soon.  It is still one of a genealogists best friends and will remain such for a long time.

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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

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NARA’s Digitization Priorities Announced

A couple of months ago NARA sought input into what it should prioritize going forward in terms of digitization, Do You Have Suggestions for NARA’s Digitization Priorities?

The results of that query have now been published, Announcing NARA’s Digitization Priorities.

Our genealogical community was definitely heard from ... “Overwhelmingly, people asked us to digitize records of genealogical interest, including immigration and ethnic heritage records; military and veterans records, especially those from World War I and II; and, of course, records that had preservation concerns.”

Do check out the full list as published and note that “The following represents our top priorities – it is by no means the entire list of what we would like to digitize over time; however, these projects will be our primary focus over the next 18-24 months. Please note, list order does not reflect order in which projects will be undertaken.” 

Which of the listed records are you most anticipating access to?

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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.

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Arizona State Library and Archives & FamilySearch Partner to Make Genealogy Records Accessible

Back in July we discussed that the Arizona State Genealogy Library was in jeopardy.

It has just been announced that the Arizona State Library, FamilySearch partner to make genealogy records accessible ...

... FamilySearch is providing scanning and digital hosting services for 5,000 books at no cost to the state. In return, FamilySearch will make the digital images of the books freely available online for research globally. Once scanning is complete, the original copies of the books will return to Arizona. Scanning is expected to take about six months to complete.

Dennis Brimhall, CEO of FamilySearch International, said, “We are happy to join with the Arizona State Library and Archives to digitally preserve and make some of their historical book collections more accessible to their patrons worldwide. Each of the books contains countless rich stories about ancestors that are just waiting to be more readily discovered and told. We are excited to help patrons begin making those connections through this project.” ...

You can read the full press release at the provided link.

It’s encouraging to read that part of the extensive collection of the Arizona state Genealogy Library which was at risk will be available to researchers world wide through this partnership with FamilySearch.

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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.

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Not just crowdsourcing -- a Crowdsourcing Game Jam!

Crowdsourcing continues to be a popular way to get lots of work done in a short period of time by involving individuals from around the world to participate.

This time, The British Library is putting a bit of a twist on it by hosting a Crowdsourcing Game Jam, 3^rd-11^th September.

The British Library has digitised 1,000,000 historical images and made them freely available, but we don't know as much about what's in them as we'd like. Normally this is the size of task we'd turn to crowdsourcing to tackle, but we're looking to have a bit more fun. So we're hosting a Crowdsourcing Game Jam. Can you help us make crowdsourcing information about this collection fun?

An ideal game draws a random image from our 1-million-strong collection and through gameplay the player tells us something about the content of the image. You might choose from our limited set of tags (flora, fauna, mineral, human portrait, landscape, manmade - eg. machine, buildings, ship, abstract, artistic, music, map), or opt to be more creative...

Do read all the details on what must be the objective of your game and the rules by which your submitted game must operate.

Editor’s Note: Related articles on this topic ...

+ Another Crowdsourcing Project to Benefit Genealogists (2015)

+ Smithsonian expands its crowdsourcing -- it's amazing what we can ALL accomplish in just a few minutes ... (2014)

+ Crowdsourcing -- making recently unimaginable amounts of information available to us at our finger tips! (2014)

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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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Public Comment Sought by NARA on Partnership Agreements with Ancestry.com and Fold3 (deadline 21 August 2015)

The NARATIONS blog of the U.S. National Archives recently published Ancestry.com Partnership Agreement for public comment which states ...

Digitization partnerships present an opportunity for increased access to historical government information through the increased availability of information technology products and services. NARA has shown that partnerships with private, public, non-profit, educational, and Government institutions to digitize and make available holdings can be a powerful model.

NARA has enjoyed a successful partnership with Ancestry since 2008. NARA has also partnered with Fold3, Ancestry’s sister site, since 2007. In the month of June alone, NARA records received 8.8 million views on Ancestry.com, and 2.5 million views on Fold3.com.

We are renewing our partnership agreement with Ancestry.com and Fold3.com, and welcome public feedback...

Use the above link to read the proposed major updates to the agreement.

The original partnership agreement is available for public review and comment on the Digitization Partnerships page. This page has ALL the digitization partnership agreements. 

To see what has been digitized via these agreements you can check out Microfilm Publications and Original Records Digitized by Our Digitization Partners.

To submit feedback, please email digitization@nara.gov, or leave a comment here.

The agreement will be available for comment until August 21, 2015.

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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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NARA Keeps on Innovating -- Innovation Hub now open!

More news from NARA ... last week we discussed NARA in two posts, One Person Can Do So Much! Virtual Volunteering (NARA) and Do You Have Suggestions for NARA’s Digitization Priorities?

This week NARA is again in the news as it has opened an Innovation Hub. 

The Innovation Hub is open.  Located on the first floor of the National Archives building in Washington, D.C., the Hub has two sections: a meeting area, and a citizen scanning room where researchers can scan our records with state-of-the-art equipment at no cost as long as they also contribute a copy of their digital scans for our online catalog...

We have planned transcription parties as well as hosting Wikipedian meetings as well.

Read all that AOTUS (Archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero) has to say about this innovative project.

The original concept as discussed in Open Government Plan, National Archives and Records Administration is ...

With a focus on agile development, the work will focus on exploring new ideas, developing proof-of-concept pilots and web applications as well as furthering the collaboration with the public through scan-a-thons, hackathons and challenges. The Innovation Hub will explore a variety of projects, including:

o      Citizen archivist crowdsourcing tools

o      An external collaboration network where researchers and NARA staff can engage on historical topics related to National Archives records

o      Tools for citizen digitization efforts

o      Collaboration efforts with the Wikipedia community

It will be interesting to see where this goes and how individuals (e.g. citizens) can support digitization and Wikipedia community activities.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to Dick Eastman for posting about this; I caught the cross-post on Facebook.

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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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British Library Using Robots to Preserve Newspapers

Newspapers are crumbling faster than they can be preserved, or at least that is how it often feels!

An article, Not fade away... how robots are preserving our old newspapers, about part of the efforts by the British Library to preserve the British newspaper heritage has a Sci-Fi feel to it and yet this technology is in use right now rushing against time ...

A gigantic robotic vault, the National Newspaper Building in Boston Spa, near Leeds, is the British Library’s high-tech approach to safeguarding what it rather endearingly terms “the national memory” – 750m pages of news, covering more than three centuries of goings-on, as reported in papers across the nation. From political turmoil to humanitarian crisis, murder cases to local marriage notices, it’s all here. And it’s growing. “We’re adding something like 1,200 titles every week,” says Alasdair Bruce, manager of the British Library Newspaper Programme.

The article goes on to discuss other preservation elements, the challenges of preservation and digitization and recognition that even when digitization occurs, can we ensure that the digital format will be preserved and accessible!

Kind of reminds me of when it seems for every question I get an answer to, about ten or more new questions emerge ...

Yet, that doesn’t stop us from answering questions nor will it stop entities like the British Library from doing all they can to preserve its holdings for future generations.

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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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Smithsonian + Conveyor Belt = Excellent Digital Imaging System

JUST AN IMAGE -- WORKING LINK TO VIDEO IN BODY OF ARTICLE

Digitizing is very important to family history researchers.  We are often unable to physically visit an archive, library or other repository of interest to us. Even if we can visit these repositories, all of the holdings may not be available for us to access.  Given this, the digitization of collections becomes invaluable.

An issue with digitization is that we are often talking very very large collections and that many collections involve 3-D objects.

The Smithsonian with its massive collection is quite aware of this challenge and it working on ways to “speed up” (the pun is intended and you’ll understand why when you watch the video) the digitization of its collections.

Given its scale and diversity, the Smithsonian’s collection of 138 million items presents a unique digitization challenge. This video showcases a conveyor belt driven imaging system digitizing 270,000 items from the numismatics collections at the National Museum of American History in a matter of months.

Click on this link here to watch a video about Smithsonian X Digitization: A conveyor-belt driven imaging system.

This video gives a great overview of the challenge and then one solution created to facilitate in a cost affective and expeditious way the digitization of one collection with the resultant very high quality images.

Do check it the video out!  It’s great to see creative solutions coming about of the Smithsonian and its institutions.

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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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