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Illuminated Heritage

July 25, 2008

A Reason to Digitize

Today the horrific news that the Swan’s Island Library near Bangor, Maine burned to the ground after being struck by lightening.  It was a small library, about 10,000 books, but also housed a lot of the local history collections for the community. Items that were lost included:

Photographs, letters, journals, toys and even hand-carved lobster claw pegs were among the items in the collection, she said. Much of it had been kept until recently in Seaside Hall, a local recreational hall built in 1905 for plays and dances, according to the town Web site, www.swansisland.org. The hall was sold last year, and since then many of the historical items had been moved into the library, according to Bailey.

Some artifacts, such as old photo albums and letters, had been moved into the library within the past few weeks, she said.

I don’t know about you, but that gets me a bit concerned. What’s your disaster plan for your library and, especially, your local history archives or even, what’s your disaster plan for your own personal treasure troves? Have you considered digitization? In this case, if they have anything digitized, they at least have most of the content so it’s not a complete and total loss. Maybe it’s time your institution joined Digital Past and made digitization a priority? Think about it and then give me a call and we’ll talk…

posted by Kay at 1:16 pm |

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