It's no secret that I love The Signal, the Library of
Congress's digital preservation blog. A recent post there I think is of
interest to all genealogists considering digital preservation of a variety of
formats: diaries, letters, photographs, slides. The article by Mike Ashenfelder begins here:
In 1958, Vernon James was an adventurous young man from
Colorado who landed a job teaching in Germany for the Department of Defense.
During his 16-year stint there, he travelled extensively throughout Europe —
including several visits behind the Iron Curtain into West Berlin — and he took
lots and lots of photos.
Decades came and went and in 2005 Mr. James — who was
retired by then — decided to scan his European slides along with the other
slides and photos he had accumulated over the years. “I was ignorant of
scanning when I started this project,” said James. “I had heard about scanners
and bought a scanner with a slide attachment and I started scanning all of my
slides.”
The scanner did just what Mr. James wanted it to do: it
scanned. When he finished the slides he started on photos: from his wife’s year
teaching in Ethiopia, from his wedding and more…a lifetime of personal photos.
“After that we started scanning everything I had in the house,” said Mr. James.
“I scanned everything from my birth certificate to things from my early
childhood and little clippings in the local newspaper,” Mr. James said.
Vernon James (on tricycle) with his
brothers and his parents. (1931)
courtesy
The Signal
“I had a brother, Bob, who died in a Japanese prison camp in 1942 and my mother had
saved the letters and memorabilia from him and I scanned all of those.
“I scanned letters my wife had written when she was
overseas. And it kept on mushrooming. I kept finding more and more letters and
documents. My wife has kept a diary starting from back in 1965 and I think I
have 35 years of diaries scanned.” Vernon had built up momentum and was being
productive. What could go wrong?
To answer that question, I
encourage you to read the whole article by clicking here. Well worth
our time as we all work on saving our family papers.
I have learned so much from your blog over the last year and refer to it frequently. Your advice and knowledge has been so helpful in my genealogical research. I have therefore nominated you for an Illuminating Blogger Award.
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Why Teresa that's lovely of you! I'm glad I've been of help and I'll respond in a few days when I'm back in town.
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