MACON, Ga. — Macon-Bibb is one of seven libraries in the country to get a grant that creates what they call a 'memory lab.'
The Institute of Museum and Library Services gave $13,000 so you can digitize your outdated media without charge.
The Washington Memorial Library just started the new service and it's absolutely cool. If you've got negatives of old photos or VHS tapes, you sign up for a three-hour window go to the library and digitize it for free.
Librarian Tim Spishock is loading in some pictures. He can help you, but there are training videos you've got to watch so you can do everything yourself.
Muriel Jackson, the library's head of the Genealogical and Historical Room, wrote the grant that got the program going.
"You can bring a jump drive, an external hard drive, you can email it to yourself or the cloud," she said.
It began because she wanted to preserve VHS tapes donated to the library from the Macon Symphony Orchestra. The machinery covers all kinds of formats.
Jackson says it can get emotional for people reliving parts of their lives they haven't seen in decades, and sometimes it's to leave a legacy behind.
"We always hear someone dies and no one knows who they are because they're not labeled, so with the new technology you can get it labeled and everyone in the family can get a copy of the picture," she said.
Technology is changing all the time, but you can't replace memories that were a snapshot in time.
Jackson says she hopes they'll get a machine that will preserve audio recordings in the future.
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