Obsolete Media Laboratory

Mary Beth from St Croix Falls Historical Society scanning 100 3x4 1948 negatives of the St Croix Falls Highschool on the OML negative scanner.  They turned out great even though the negatives were somewhat damaged. 

One of the areas at the Cushing Museum is the Obsolete Media Laboratory.  The goal is to be able to digitize old media -- film, video, photos, documents, audio, etc.  

The current inventory of media players at the Museum:

  An inventory of digitizing and viewing devices in the  OML. We started collecting devices 8 years ago, but the majority has come in since we officially kicked off the Obsolete Media Lab in January 2022.  We have spent about $3000 on equipment, almost all of it from grants.  However, much of the equipment is donated or bought used and repaired.  We estimate our lab holds over $10,000 of equipment had we bought it new when it was new!   Now much is just wasting space in people's closets.  Some items are actually still valuable as is a $300 Grundig tape recorder bought in 1965 now listed for $475 on e-Bay today. 

   In no particular order: 

Scanners:  

   Epson V800 flatbed scanner.  High resolution with the ability to scan negatives up to 8x10 inches, slides and regular scanning.  Paid for by a WHS mini-grant and shared to 6 other museums in the past several years.  About $850

   Fujitsu S1300i rapid two-sided scanner. It allows scanning double-sided in one pass of a stack of up to a dozen sheets of paper (up to 8.5x14) at 600DPI.  Also can stack 5 photos or postcards at a time and run them through.  Bought used on e-Bay for $60. These were meant for business office rapid scans of papers or business cards etc. and are old technology but excellent as they cost about 1/10 of a new one and are supported on modern computers. Buy a used one!

   HP Scanjet 63010 flat bed scanner.  Donated to us and useful. 

   Ion 35mm film and slide scanner -- stand-alone for the fast scan of slides.  Not really good for high-resolution scans, but great for a quick web-resolution scan.  $5 at a Thrift Store.  

    CZUR 16+ camera on a stand for rapid scanning or copying of newspapers, books, record books etc.  Funded with WHS mini-grant -- $299 refurbished.  It does 300 dpi suitable for OCR documents and scans as fast as you can turn the pages and press the foot pedal to take the photo. 

   All-in-one scanner/printers

  Epson Workforce 7620 All-in-one.  Batch scan a stack of 25 pages double-sided.  Flat scan up to 11x17.  Print 13x19 or up to 13x42 banner.  Double sided printing.  Used for scanning and poster prints. Free as it was broken and we got it repaired. 

    Epson WF3640 All in one.  Like the one above except regular and legal size paper only.  Donated free as the ink heads were clogged.  We unclogged them and use it for printing and scanning. 

    HP laserjet 1100 printer - one sided black and white printing.  Works on XP computer only. Donated with cartridges. We really need to upgrade to a double sided laser printer. 

Audio Tape (these plug directly into the microphone port on a computer)

     Panasonic cassette tape recorder/player.  Donated

     TEAC X300R Tape recorder/player.  Reel to reel tapes.  Donated

     Grundig TKZ4 reel to reel tape player - donated

     Boombox with CD and tape player -donated

     GE mini-cassette recorder/player  $5 thrift store

      Using the free Audacity software we can digitize directly with a earphone to microphone cable available from Amazon $5

Movie/Film devices.  

      We can project the movie films onto a screen in a darkened room and point a camera to the screen and record it digitally that way-- that work OK and is free.  However a frame-by-frame digitization would be better. There can be difficulty and expense buying projector bulbs, so we accept multiple projector donations as a way of getting extra bulbs. 

      2 Bell and Howell Auto Load 8mmuper 8mm projectors Donated

      Bell and Howell 8mm movie projector 8mm (old model)  Donated    

      2-16 mm movie projectors donated from local schools

      Wolverine 8mm/super 8mm frame-by-frame digitizer.  Bought used and "as is" on e-Bay for $70 add repaired at the museum.  This is nice but somewhat fussy to run.  They cost about $400 new and do a very good digitzation. 

     2-slide projectors and extra carousels.  Donated

     1 Nikon L810 digital camera -- $50 used on e-Bay

     1 Samsung DVD VHS player - donated. We bought a $20 device that connects the output of the player (or video cameras) directly to a PC USB port to digitize videos. Plays VHS tapes to the computer.  

      3 various 8 mm format video cameras for playback of most 8 mm analog and digital camcorder recordings. Sony Handi cam and Canon.  Donated 

      Complete photo darkroom setup but no place to use nor need to. 

Microfilm and 35 mm film viewers

    Most of the rural newspapers are on microfilm and not yet digitized so must be viewed at a library or history research center.  Local libraries do have microfilms but do not have viewers in our area.  So although we can order and check out microfilm from the library, we can't view it nor digitize or print it.  

So we have collected the following: 

    Northwest Microfilm 2020A Viewer kiosk -- donated  -- you can take a photo of an image by pointing your camera at the screen, but not wonderful

    ST-Imaging Viewscan 200x microfilm viewer and digitizer.  $75.  With a computer, it makes a digital image of the viewed microfilm page.  These are $10,000 pieces of equipment, but we got this one from a defunct college.  It is a 2007 model but works fine.  Probably the best buy we have made!

    Dukane 35 mm filmstrip projector (under repair) used on e-Bay $20

    Graflex Studymate II personal filmstrip viewer.  $20 e-Bay and repaired

     (we have a collection of 60 educational filmstrips donated)  

Computers and computer media. 

     Blue Chip IBM DOS clone from the 1980s to read 5.25 floppy diskettes and 3.5 diskettes. Donated

     Windows XP computer to use with old hardware that requires XP or older operating system (one scanner, one printer, and other old devices). Donated

     Windows laptop to use with CZUR scanner -- used $200

     Windows laptop to use with the Epson V800 scanner - used $200

     Windows 10 modern computer for general use  $50 used local purchase. 

     Windows 10 all-in-one to use with microfilm digitizer Donated. Very good computer for video processing and other high power needs. 

      For use with the computers: 

       USB Zip drive reader/writer 

       USB 3.5 inche disketter reader/writer

       Internal and USB CD/DVD reader writer

       USB multi-camera card reader -- most types 

Miscellaneous

       Viewmaster viewer and projector

       Stereoscope and old stereo view cards.  

       Magic Lantern projector and slides 

       DIY camera stand and negative copier with a backlit light source

       Record player stereo deck (under repair) donated. 

Video Projector

        Epson Home Cinema 880 video projector with wifi connection purchased with local grant $800

        Infocus IN2102 Video projector donated -- beginning to fail donated

        7ft wide pull-down projector screen $90 and small portable screen donated

The Obsolete Media Laboratory is meant to be shared by other historical societies and museums. Some of the equipment may be loaned out (i.e. the negative scanner), but much is best used with help at the Cushing Museum of the Sterling Eureka and Laketown Historical Society.  Open Mondays 10-2 and by appointment. 

Russ Hanson Obsolete Media Laboratory Director

selhscushing@gmail.com

Located in uptown Cushing, WI --up the hill from downtown and on the west side of the road at the peak of the Cushing hill, where settlers gathered in the 1870s to fend off the bogus Indian uprising.