By John Gargiulo, Supervising Librarian of Creative Technology
Have VHS tapes, cassette tapes, or film negatives you’d like to digitize and preserve? The library’s Media Stations have equipment to help you do just that.
Located on the third floor of the Main Library in the Creative Studio, the stations provide VCRs, high-quality scanners, and other equipment for you to turn your analog media into digital files. The stations are capable of digitizing and preserving documents, photos, 35mm negatives, 120/medium format negatives, slides, VHS tapes, VHS-C tapes, miniDV tapes, and more.
Ready to get started? Learn how to reserve the Media Stations »
But first, let’s review a few recommendations to keep in mind while using these resources.
What to know before using a Media Station
In-person, one-on-one training is available
Prior training is not required to use the Media Stations, but you can schedule a Learning Lab with library staff to review how to use this resource. We also highly recommend scheduling a Learning Lab if you plan to scan film negatives or slides.
What can you preserve at the library?
The library’s Media Stations and auxiliary equipment are capable of digitally preserving the following types of analog and digital media:
- Images: photographs, 35mm and 120/medium format negatives, slides
- Video: VHS, VHS-C, MiniDV
- Audio: cassettes, microcassettes
- Data: floppy disks, SD cards
What to bring with you to a station reservation
First, make sure to bring the analog media you want to digitize, such as a VHS tape, audio cassette, or collection of film negatives or slides. For any type of media, make sure you bring some form of external hard drive to save your files after you’ve digitized them. This might look like a small flash drive or a larger external hard drive that you plug into the computer with a cable.
Need to borrow a hard drive? Our Library of Things collection includes 2 TB hard drives you can check out with your Oak Park library card.
If you plan on scanning film negatives or slides, we recommend bringing in cotton or non-latex gloves to handle your materials. We also recommend holding these materials carefully by the sides to minimize accidental damage.
Decide what file type you’ll want to save as
When digitizing your analog media, it’s worth considering what type of digital file you will save it as. Different file formats affect factors such as file size and quality. It’s also a good idea to use sustainable file formats, which are likely to still be used 5-10 years from now.
Find tips on recommended digital file types for archiving images and audio/video files.
Bring an external hard drive to save your work
For your privacy, all user files are permanently erased from Creative Studio computers when your computer session ends. Bringing an external hard drive will allow you to save your work to take home.
While you can also back up files to cloud storage sites such as Google Drive or Dropbox, it may take a while to back up video files, which can be quite large. Bringing an external hard drive will help make sure you have enough time to save your files before your computer session ends.
Make multiple backups
Once your work at a Media Station is complete, it is a good idea to back up your files in multiple places. This might involve copying your files to an additional external hard drive or backing them up on both an external hard drive and cloud storage like Google Drive or Dropbox.
Many people use the 3-2-1 rule, which Wikipedia explains: “There should be at least 3 copies of the data, stored on 2 different types of storage media, and one copy should be kept offsite, in a remote location (this can include cloud storage).”
Have a tech question?
About John
As the library’s Supervising Librarian of Creative Technology, John enjoys working with patrons to discover how we can demystify technology and shape it to help us with our different needs and aspirations. He is also a musician and loves making noise.
