Laserfiche WebLink
date with what the library is currently doing because the library updates its website page <br />periodically. On the second page of this copy with the main library's picture on it, I have <br />highlighted a link that reads Digitization Project. So for any of you who would need to <br />know what the library is doing at any given time, all you would have to do is go to this <br />site on the web and click on this link and they would be able to have access to this <br />information. <br />The second copy that I have given everyone tonight has a picture of part of a <br />computer on the top of its page. This page contains a list of our meeting minutes and the <br />links for our Digitization Project. If you click onto any of these links you will have <br />access to our library's meeting minutes which all of you have a hard copy of. The Project <br />Committee has been meeting for over a year now and the meeting minutes will tell you <br />exactly our deliberations with what we have and have not decided, and where we <br />currently are in the project. The meeting minutes for August 26`h contain links to very <br />important sites for us in terms of our historical digitization project. <br />The last item I have given to everyone tonight are two of those links, which are <br />actually two different documents, but the front page of two different documents that are <br />available on our website. These documents talk about preserving historical records in <br />digitized form and the various processes you will need to go through to make the <br />conversion. The document that comes from Cornell University is a good example of a <br />well developed digitization project. We are planning on using this document as a model <br />for our own project. <br />I know that the Historic Preservation Commission is aware of the library's digitization <br />project because a letter was sent from this organization to us asking that we leave the <br />clippings file out for public view. The library has already purchased the equipment that <br />we will need to use for this project. We have already set up a scanning room and will <br />begin to start training around the first week in December. We hope to start scanning and <br />digitizing historical records and creating a data base that is searchable. We expect this <br />project to take at least five years. We expect that this project will continue to go on for a <br />long time because we are not going to stop with just the clippings file or some of the <br />historical books that we have. In the years to come we hope that we will get donations <br />from other families as well as other family histories that we can digitize and make <br />available on our website or available on computers at the main library. <br />One of the main concerns that the HPC had when they came to talk to us was that the <br />HPC wanted the clippings file of historical documents left out for public use. Many of <br />you who have done research have come to the library and used our clippings file. For <br />those of you who are not familiar with this file, I have brought some of the files with me. <br />These are just two of the files from the Studebaker Corporation. Some of the older <br />documents in these files are in very fragile condition and are so worn that you cannot <br />read the text anymore. <br />For many years the library has been clipping out of the local newspaper any article of <br />local significance and pasting them onto legal size cardboard sheets. This clippings file <br />is a very important file for the library and we have no intention of destroying it in any <br />way regardless of what you may have heard. The library would like to have the clippings <br />file digitized because many of the documents that are in these files are in very fragile <br />condition. When we went to the company that sold us the equipment to see how well it <br />works, we brought an atlas of the county that has that picture in it, and when we left, <br />