Save our stuff: Preserve memories at the library
We will collaborate with the Pinney Library to help Madison residents update their digital memories to new media platforms on Wed. April 27th 4:00-7:00 pm. All Madison residents are welcome!
| Event: | Save Our Stuff: Preserve Memories at the Library |
| Time: | Wednesday, April 27 at 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM in CDT |
| Locations: |
SLIS Library – 4191 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St., Madison WI (Parking Directions) Pinney Library – 204 Cottage Grove Road., Madison, WI |
The event will make available experts to assist in transferring items stored on older media platforms that may be at risk of failure. This event will happen concurrently at two locations. Madison residents can ‘rescue’ digital data from Zip disks, 3.5 and 5.25-inch floppy disks, Jaz disks, and hard drives at SLIS Library’s RADD (Recovering Analog and Digital Data) project. Pinney Library will work with audiovisual materials, assisting patrons to ‘rescue’ data from audio and video formats such as VHS tapes, mini-DV (camcorder) tapes, and audio cassettes, and to provide viewing assistance for home movie film formats such as 8mm, super8, and 16mm. Experts will be available to help at both locations. Bring a USB stick or other portable drive to copy data to.
“As technology changes, not everyone has the capacity to update to the latest, greatest device,” said Dorothea Salo, Faculty Associate. “Whether you have a decade of photos on an old floppy disk or an unfinished novel stored away on an old hard drive in the closet – we can help you get that data off of those devices and onto a USB stick or flash drive,” she said.
“We know that people have old films in their homes with childhood and other nostalgic memories and no way to play them. We want to help people figure out what they can do with those films so the images aren’t lost.” – Amy Sloper, Head Archivist, Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research
RADD was built by SLIS faculty member Dorothea Salo and her students to digitize at-risk audiovisual materials such as VHS tapes and audio cassettes. Madison Magazine gave RADD its M Award for Social Innovation in 2015, and the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment will fund RADD’s rescue work this summer. Pinney Library is the third-busiest among Madison’s nine libraries and is currently in the “quiet” stage of a capitol campaign the new Pinney Library.