Preserving Family History at the Digital Memories Lab
- 05/14/2024
- 15:33
- maureen
Discover how easy it is to preserve your family history and memories!
Join us with Carol Hamilton as she spent a morning utilizing the Digital Memories Lab at Seymour Library.
This was Carol’s first time visiting the lab and after a quick five-minute one-on-one tutorial she was ready to go! And it was a heartwarming experience for not just Carol but our staff members, too. For this first visit, Carol brought in a selection of VHS tapes that contained a treasure trove of memories. Carol was beaming as she viewed her cherished family movies on a small screen while the VHS tape was digitized in real-time.
We asked Carol if there was a special memory that she would like to share with us. A moment that stood out?
Her immediate response was “My mom and dad, I haven’t seen them in ages. I never thought I would see them again.” Her family video was playing while she was saying this and you could see her father with her son on a swing set in what appeared to be a backyard or a playground.
She then chimed in, stating “Happy times together.”
Did you find the process easy?
Yes, and she came prepared! Carol stopped at Staples to get a large-capacity flash drive and even brought in a special adapter for cassette tapes.
Carol’s final thoughts and remarks:
“I love it, how special,” and she added, “The library has so many wonderful programs, this is a great thing and a great service for this community.”
We are happy to report that Carol will be back to continue digitizing her family memories and the Historic Discovery Center hopes you will too.~
What is the process for using the Digital Memories Lab?
- Make an appointment by calling the History Discovery Center at 315-252-2571 ex. 414 during its open hours Wed/Thurs/Fri 10 am – 4 pm. (Limited to one appointment per person, per day with a maximum time slot of two hours.)
- Be aware that digitization may be time-consuming. (Video and audio transfers will happen in real-time. For example, a one-hour video or audio file will take one hour to transfer plus additional time for compressing and saving.)
- Bring a personal storage device with you – USB or external hard drive – or create an account for cloud storage – Google Drive, etc. (Digitized materials cannot be saved to library computers and must be saved to personal storage. Please make sure your selected storage has enough capacity for your digital files.)
Have more questions about the Digital Memories Lab at the Mary Van Sickle Wait History Discovery Center? Visit our FAQ page to learn more!