Digital Scrapbooking

The weekend post about the Conaway family is a limited example of the potential for "digital scrapbooking." Instead of fading photographs and yellowing newsprint in oversize volumes, succinct narratives can be assembled from digital copies, and shared online.

The community has access to this ST200X imaging equipment which will capture digital versions of photos, newspaper clips, or any other visual element. All the visual elements in Note Worthy were generated using this equipment.

This blog post is emanating from the workstation shown here. Web resources like Free Digital Scrapbooking could even be drawn on to make the final layout resemble a physical scrapbook.

Mish-Mash and Salmagundi

Doing some more get-acquainted work with the ST200X, and throwing together a "library update" presentation for Sunrise Sertoma. The presentation is a musing on daily library activity and the impact of 2.0.

York Public Library has owned a 24-volume "Ninth Britannica" for over a century and it is not listed in the public catalog. The only local information I've found in the set is a state of Nebraska map which shows the Blue River(s), Beaver Creek, Lincoln Creek, the railroad, and Arborville, Bradshaw, Waco and York in York County. What a contrast to today's wikipedia entry.

This weekend's C-Span / BOOK TV "In Depth" was Brian Lamb talking to Michael Rosenblum about "citizen journalism." The concept is based on the realization that inexpensive technology has made old assumptions about television journalism obsolete, and blurred the boundaries between newspapers and television news. The York News-Times web site includes video versions of some print stories. But what about York stories on regional television broadcasts? What about last week's stories? Last month's? October 2006's? For purposes of researching local history they should be as accessible as the old newspapers.

A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Herbert Kilgore's daughter, Mary Vallad, sent a DVD copy of an hour's worth of video footage of the Kilgore Memorial Library dedication during the 1986 Yorkfest. Until now, the library has not had a copy. Now we'll have to figure out how to post portions on the web. Our FLICKR account has web space for ninety second clips.

Andrew Bullen, information technology coordinator for the Illinois State Library, has a new article about using carefully designed 2.0 tools to improve the usability of unique archival resources, by drawing on the shared expertise of the "world wide web". In his case he uses the archives of the Pullman Company as an example, but the challenge is the same if the topic is York Foundry, the Nobes Opera House, or Harrison Nursuries.

Appropriate Technology

The meaning of appropriate technology depends on context. For some examples, look at wikipedia, Appropedia, Journey To Forever, the National Center For Appropriate Technology, and the Development Center For Appropriate Technology.

" To be appropriate, technology must be connected to the place, resources, economics, culture and impacts of its use." -- the quote comes from DCAT.

So how does this relate to libraries in general or our library in particular?

Consider presentation formats -- regular print, large print, abridged audiobook, unabridged audiobook, various e-book formats, visual media formats, etc. What does the library collect and make available? (As an aside, we have not tried Kindle yet, although several public libraries are investigating how it could be used.)

And what about technology for public use? There has been an amazing explosion of expectations in the past quarter century.

The Kilgore Memorial Library Foundation purchased this ST200X digital imaging system. It can scan and generate digital images from a variety of film and hard copy formats, manipulate the images, and output them in several digital image formats or send them to a printer.

We anticipate being able to answer e-mail requests for "obit copies" with scanned and digitized replies. We anticipate library users finding all kinds of uses for this equipment. In the spirit of L2NE, experiment with the technology & see if it is appropriate for your needs.

My desk drawer has held a box of color slides from an Instamatic camera for over twenty years. The slides show the old library, and site preparation for Kilgore Memorial Library. Now thanks to the imaging equipment and FLICKR, they exist "at large."