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| Scan It & Share It: Digitization Projects for Your Society |
Digitizing isn't only being done by the "big" societies, and it doesn't take a huge financial commitment.
Gary Ward, President of the Lockport Area Genealogical & Historical Society, an FGS Member Society, shares how his small society became a beta tester for the Ancestry digitization project. But you don't have to be part of the project to get your society's collections digitized and indexed.
All you really need: a laptop, a digital camera with a tripod (or a scanner), some volunteers, and material that has some genealogical or historical value.
Not every digitized collection needs to be large, either. Your society may hold the key to breaking down someone's brick wall in its tiny collection! There may be school records, town council records, or other local records in danger of destruction (either by man-made or natural forces) that are just begging to be digitized.
Listen to the archived broadcast of "Scan It and Share It: Digitization Projects for Your Society" on the blogtalkradio My Society channel by FGS, or you can listen below:
Check Out History Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with mysociety on BlogTalkRadio
I have done a couple indexing projects for the Greene County Historical Society (Stanardsville, Virginia). One was a family scrapbook kept by a woman who clipped every article about the people she knew. The other was a record book of a general store, so if you have an ancestor who lived in Greene, you might find his name in the book, the day he shopped, what he bought, how much he paid, and whether he bought on credit. Pretty cool. Right now I'm transcribing and indexing county school board minutes from 1872-1906- lots of early politics! So your advice is RIGHT ON -- probably lots of societies have been given odd things they don't know what to do with except stick it on a shelf. I live 250 miles from Greene County, so this is how I contribute since it's not practical to be there in person.
ReplyDeleteHi Wendy,
DeleteGreat examples of what can be preserved by societies! Thank you so much for your hard work as a volunteer and thank you for sharing!
~Caroline