Most of us often take pictures to remember important and special events and places — maybe even too many! We have all seen that person visiting a place such as the Grand Canyon, seemingly more focused on taking photos than their surroundings.
There’s nothing wrong with taking photos or videos; we do it to preserve special moments. But how often do we get around to having those photos developed so we can actually enjoy them?
Today it seems most pictures do not get developed, often because of the cost and effort involved. Making prints or saving videos involves the effort and cost of going to a store.
The Cumberland County Public Library offers the same service for free. You don’t have to pay for fancy equipment or ship it off to a company to do it for you. Cumberland County Headquarters Library features a digital preservation lab which will convert your out-of-date pictures and other materials for free.
The digital preservation lab is in the Local & State Department on the second floor of Headquarters Library, located at 300 Maiden Lane in downtown Fayetteville. The lab is equipped with a scanner, VCR to DVD converter, slide and negative converter, vinyl record converter, cassette converter, along with new equipment such as a camcorder converter.
Coming soon to the lab are new photo and book scanners to scan your family scrapbooks. Soon, you will be able to convert old film reel footage film from the 1960s and 1970s. Use of the equipment is completely free — all you have to do is bring your own flash drive or blank DVD/CD to save your converted materials. This process allows you to preserve old records and memories in an up-to-date format, easily accessible by future generations.
Come to the Local & State Department and staff members will be glad to assist you and show you how to use the digitization software. Please be advised converting takes time. Converting a video requires the entire video to be played in real time. Don’t let those photos sit on a phone or in a box forever.
To start preserving your memories, call 910-483-7727 ext. 1365 or visit here for more information.
