Digitizing & Preserving the Past with a Document Scanning Company
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Advanced technology has revolutionized the concept of libraries, and today libraries are in the process of digitization. The main objective behind digital library is to preserve resources such as valuable documents, photographs, microfiche etc and provide easy access to library resources. Digitization implies conversion of documents and artworks into digital images. A document scanning company offers services like microfiche scanning, document conversion, digitization of photographs etc. Digital collections in a library consist of research and scholarly works, books and other valuable documents that reveal the past as well as books from the present generation, manuscripts and so on. It is a form of preservation and conservation of recorded knowledge. It also provides accessibility, flexibility and manipulability to useful resources for numerous people around the world once the digitized materials are placed online while simultaneously minimizing damages due to handling physical documents. Most of the Libraries in the United States and Canada are encouraging libraries to digitize their resources like publicly archive, personal history items such as photographs, VHS tapes etc. Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) is digitizing its special collections to preserve the past. Gathering the Stories With the grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the LAPL is converting the content of legacy media like slides, reel-to-reel audio tape, and floppy disks into digital files. They have also set up a Mobile Memory Lab, a pop-up program that brings digitization equipment to the community. So, on scanning days all community members are invited to bring old photographs, letters etc and they are digitized and archived in LAPL’s digital collection portals and in the Digital Public Library of America. With a small funding from the Los Angeles Library Foundation, the Mobile Memory Lab travels to LAPL branches. The Mobile Memory Lab also has an oral history component where the staffers interview around four members of the specific community who have interesting stories or are active politically, and those oral histories are also given to participants and archived. The objective of Mobile Memory Lab is to “democratize the archive” and illuminate the history of Los Angeles’ diverse populations. Although this is an excellent initiative to preserve the past of the Angelenos of all communities, some people are reluctant to this idea of putting invaluable family keepsakes into someone else’s hands. York University Libraries during the period 2017 to 2019 helped www.managedoutsource.com
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preserve the memories of Canada’s indigenous and visible minority families by digitizing free home movies. Through Home Made Visible, a partnership with Regent Park Film Festival and Charles Street Video, YUL solicited and digitized home movies at no cost to participants, who were asked to donate a minimum of five minutes’ footage from their home movies to the YUL archives. But building the trust that the project required involved a lot of talks with the people. Anna St. Onge, YUL director of digital scholarship infrastructure, and her colleagues learned to address those concerns through clear and open explanations. So each family were in their comfort zone by donating only clips that did not feature their families, to maintain privacy. The footages are still being uploaded to YUL’s digital archive. Challenges Behind Digitization When patrons bring huge boxes of slides, each slide has to be photographed, digitized, transferred and archived. This is a highly time-consuming task. Despite all the challenges that many libraries faced, the University of North Texas in Denton’s Portal to Texas History, a digital gateway to historic materials from private collectors and partners such as libraries and museums, was launched. Conceived in 2002, the portal focuses on the history of small Texas communities. Material from 13 partners were made available online in 2004, and the portal now features 1.3 million visible items from 412 partners and adds an average of 16,000 items per month, according to Project Development Librarian Jacob Mangum. For libraries and museums where there are large volumes of documents to be digitized, the best option is to seek the support of a reliable document scanning company that can scan documents quickly without causing any damage. They have professionals who can handle any fragile documents with great care. The services are cost-effective too and dedicated service providers ensure that the output is perfect.
www.managedoutsource.com
(800) 670 2809