As a child, summer was always the season of travel. We’d pile into our white station wagon named Penguin with a car topper strapped in place and set off to family reunions, national parks, family friends in far flung places, and many other interesting sites that were fun to explore and experience. When you’re a kid, there seems to be more to explore than the time to explore it! As an adult, you wonder where that energy went and find yourself constantly doing head counts. Tying it all together though, are the memories – some good, some bad, others funny, and a few sad. Many people want to treasure their memories, whether that be by writing them down, taking photographs, or recording the experience as it happened or talking about it later.

However you or your loved ones have recorded those memories, we would love to help you in preserving and sharing them. In our Memory Lab, we have a digital scanner to convert documents into PDF files or photographs, slides, film, and negatives into image files. We can convert (are you ready for some acronyms?) VHS, VHS-C, DV, miniDV, HDV 1080i, Betamax, and DVCAM video cartridges and cassettes into digital video files of various formats. We can also convert phonograph and audio cassette tapes into audio files of various formats as well.

At this point you might ask, “Well, what can’t you do?” Well we can’t do it for you. The Memory Lab is intended as a self-service area. We’ll train and assist as necessary, but you are the one responsible for your media. One reason for this is that digitization occurs in real time. That means that if you bring in a 2 hour home video VHS tape, then it will take 2 hours JUST to record the videos into a digital format. That does not include the setup time beforehand or the file finishing and formatting after. Users must plan to stay to monitor the entire process of their own media digitization. Library staff are available to assist with questions or to troubleshoot. Be prepared to bring something to do during your recording process. You might also think about chunking your sessions into more manageable lengths of time.

If you want to take your new digital files with you after you finish, then you will need to bring a flash drive (sometimes called a memory stick or thumb drive), an external hard drive, blank CDs or DVDs, or be prepared to upload it on the internet into a cloud based drive. We do have flash drives available for purchase at the library for $3. If you didn’t understand any of that, don’t worry! We do a one hour training for all first time users, and we’re always happy to answer your questions.

If you’re interested in making an appointment, the Memory Lab is open Monday thru Friday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. with 1 hour slots. You can call us to set up a time or go to our website at www.newulmlibrary.org and click on the Memory Lab tree to setup an appointment online. As you make new memories or rediscover treasured ones, we hope you’ll consider how those memories can continue to be enjoyed by coming generations.

The library is located at 17 N. Broadway and is open to the public Monday to Thursday

9:30 a.m.-8 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. The library will be closed on Tuesday, July 4 for Independence Day.