Practicum Digitization Project

The project for my practicum was both fun and important to the library as it was possibly one of the only times in which this project could be completed while the material was in good condition.

My project started with an initial discussion in late January. I was talking with Amy Garrett one day about what I could do for a project and we had begun discussing multiple ideas that could implemented including teaching a class, giving a presentation or hosting an event. While discussing this I brought up my digitization skills and some projects I had worked on and we talked about me possibly having a workshop, when Jessica a fellow reference librarian who was helping Amy with my practicum mentioned some films held in the library for local history and my interest was piqued. Amy introduced me to Beth Daugherty the local history librarian who talked with me about setting up a database for these films. She started by showing me what she had. Beth held at that time two 16mm films and some VHS tapes that needed to be digitized. During the Fall 2016 semester I took a workshop on AV Archiving and I learned about a local digitization lab set up at the University of Akron center for Psychology. I remembered that workshop and realized that these films while they had been stored correctly and were in a controlled environment there was a risk of decay over time and it would be unknown when another student who knew about this lab would be at the library. So, I decided that for my project I would work to digitize these films using my connections to save them before any further damage could be done. I started my project by emailing my contacts at the Center for Psychology. After a few days, they responded and asked about the films I told them that they were public domain local history films and gave them all the required information to see if they could be digitized.

We arranged a meeting where Beth and I could go to the Akron campus and have the films digitized. However, instead of scheduling an immediate appointment we waited until Beth could get more material as she was in the middle of finishing off a large acquisition of materials from the family of a local historian who had passed away. By early February Beth had all the materials which added two 8mm films of unknown origin. Before we could have the films digitized however we needed to get a hard drive from the IT department. So, I went and talked with the IT manager and he gave me a large blank hard drive I could utilize for the project. With the hard drive in hand and we had an appointment scheduled for mid-February to drop off the films and have them digitized. While this was happening, Beth looked at the VHS films she had and set aside the ones she wanted digitized. I then scheduled an appointment to utilize the Digital Laboratory at Kent State where some digitization materials were currently held. While waiting for the appointment at Akron I took the VHS tapes to Kent and digitize them, but with any digitization project there are occasionally some problems. I could get the VHS tapes digitized and saved onto MP4 files but the video and audio were slightly out of sync as the tapes had begun to slowly deteriorate and any work that needed to be done on them needed to be done now. So, by late February the project was half done as the two VHS tapes were digitized and the digital copies were ready for use. By early march the 16 and 8mm films were digitized and needed to be picked up. I had to wait until mid-March due to some bad weather but I could pick up the films and the digital copy from Akron. The transfer was smooth and the films looked good the only problem with the digitization process was that there was a part of the 16mm film that had sound that was unrecoverable due to the method in which it was captured. Beyond that the films looked good and they were now saved as digital copies. After receiving the films and picking up the digital VHS copy from home I went to the Stow library and gave Beth the films back and showed everyone the result. Most of the project was completed between Me, Beth and the Akron Psychology museum. Amy was less involved as local history was not her department but she helped with the project; Amy provided me with information on people in the library who could help with it. Amy generally watched over the project and helped me to manage it, making sure that it did not become expensive or complex enough that I could not complete it by the end of my practicum. At the end of the project Amy greatly contributed as she provided valuable information on who people were in the Library Opening video and what some of the organizations that were featured in the video did. Other people who were off the reference desk came to watch the digitized films, reminisce and provided more background knowledge, which was both fun and professionally satisfying as it meant that parts of Stow's history could now be seen again. The digital films were good copies but the damaged done to the VHS and age of the films were visible but what was captured was high quality and provided a lot of local history information that was previously unavailable including a copy of the library’s opening which can be utilized for the Stow Libraries 20th anniversary this year.

Overall, I learned through this project what it means to be a part of a larger team, what I can bring to that team and what it takes to make certain things possible. This project left me feeling very satisfied and helped to improve my networking and digitization skills.