My History of Digitization

My interest in digitizing stems from an interest in obsolete formats.  The idea that there are audio/visual recordings that people cannot access, and maybe never have, is very exciting to me. These materials pose problems for access that paper does not. No matter how old a piece of paper is, it is readable, it can be stored, without changing its format, and someone can access it 500 years later.  Digitizing obsolete formats to ensure their viewability in the future seems particularly important to me. Similarly, the idea that formats will constantly be changing and improving, means that maintaining access to these materials will be an issue that may never go away.

My fist experience with changing formats ( not technically ‘digitizing' ) was for my  family, transferring home videos to DVD. This was quite an undertaking, sifting through 15 years worth of video. To complicate things further, my Dad’s frugal method of using every minute of blank tape meant one evening could be split up and found in 5 different places.  This was also my first experience in making organizing and arrangement decisions, Do I arrange by holiday then year? Do I arrange birthdays by year or by person? Sporting events by year or person? Etc.

I used a device with a VHS and DVD drive and was fairly straightforward to use. But the process of taking the mini tape, putting it in the adapter VHS tape before placing in the VHS drive made me wonder what we would do it the adapter was lost. Just a simple search for such an adapter says ‘currently unavailable.’

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000067DK2/gemotrack9-20/ref=nosim

Another project commissioned for me is to digitizing massive amounts of slides for my parents, since their slide projector is no longer functional. To me this poses another issue of the viewing experience. Watching slides was quite a process, pulling out the projector screen, setting up the projector, making sure the slides were placed correctly in the slot, hearing the hum of the machine and the loud sound of proceeding to the next slide. Obviously, I can be quite nostalgic about these slide shows, and it makes me wonder that while these slides can certainly be digitized and viewable, the viewing experience may not be.

From Survey of Digitization I hope to learn how to digitize a variety of formats and become familiar with  problems associated with each. I also hope to discover successful ways to make digitized materials accessible to the public at large.