Written by Walker Evans
Any music lover knows that media formats come and go.
Back in the mid-1990s, I was excited to start a collection of cassette tapes when I received a portable cassette player for my 13th birthday.
CDs were cutting edge technology then, their shiny holographic surfaces evoking gleaming spaceships and hovercars. They worked with lasers, I had heard — a giant leap from the analog physicality of a tape player’s turning wheels or the needle at the arm of a record player.
I don’t know what ever happened to my collection of albums on audio cassette or the tapes I used to record musical experiments, skits and simple plays. And even if I had them, how would I play them? A few decades ago, most homes had a cassette player of some kind. Today, even CD players are increasingly rare, as more people listen to music via digital streaming services.
Recorded media allows us to reconnect with our memories and our past selves. They help us understand where we came from and who we are.
Early in my relationship with my now-wife, I remember laughing as her parents shared 30-year-old home videos of her as a kid — originally recorded on videotape with an old camcorder. These videos probably would have been lost, by now, if they hadn’t been preserved in a digital format.
That’s why I think of digital preservation as a human, emotional issue. Losing access to an old home movie, photo album or tape recording can feel like losing a connection with our own history and loved ones.
That’s why I’m excited to introduce our library’s new digitization station, established with money from the 2023-24 Gismondi VITAL Grant — Versatile Investment to Area Libraries.
In past years, the Gismondi Foundation has generously funded a number of improvements to our building, including our first Arabic-language children’s book collection and a comfortable outdoor sitting area in our building’s areaway.
This year, we are honored to receive funding that will help residents of Carnegie preserve their beloved memories for generations to come.
Opening by the end of the summer, our new digitization station will allow patrons to digitize everything from photos and documents to VHS tapes, slides, audio cassettes and 8 mm film.
Patrons can sign up for an appointment with a librarian to learn how to use the equipment, create a digital copy of their older media, then take the files home with them on a USB drive. No need to worry about your photos crumbling or tapes getting stretched out anymore. No need to buy hard-to-find viewing devices like slide projectors and VCRs.
Visit CarnegieCarnegie.org for more details on the digitization station.
But that’s not all we’re digitizing. Our library always has been proud to support local history with our collection of decades of Carnegie newspapers and military records on reels of microfilm. But as anyone who has tried to search microfilm knows, it can take hours of scrolling before you find what you’re looking for.
We plan to digitize our full microfilm collection and make it freely available and searchable online, a project that will drastically increase the collection’s accessibility and usability.
Students will be able to engage with local history in an easier and more direct way than ever before. Other residents might choose to research old Carnegie businesses or family history.
Such a project will not be cheap. We are seeking some grant funding, but we also welcome private donations for this goal.
Gift acknowledgement opportunities are available. If you would like to make a gift in support of this project, please reach out to our executive director, Marlee Gallagher, at gallagherm@CarnegieCarnegie.org.
With a long-standing building and a tight-knit community, we know the library and music hall building often inspires reminiscence from our visitors. Walking through our front doors often transports patrons back to the library memories of their childhoods.
I hope that with these new projects, the library will continue to find new ways to play an important role in the preservation of our community’s memories.
Walker Evans is library director at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall.