The Personal Archiving Lab at the Central Library is a collection of equipment that can be used to digitize at-risk analog materials.
The Mini Archiving Lab will be available at the Sequoya Library throughout July & August.
To use the equipment, you'll need to take a short tutorial with library staff. A tutorial takes 20-30 minutes and you can stop into one of the sessions listed below at participating locations.
Schedule a Tutorial:
Central Library (these are drop-in, no appointment necessary)
- Monday, July 1, 2-4PM
- Monday, July 8, 2-4PM
- Monday, July 22, 2-4PM
- Monday, July 29, 2-4PM
- Monday, August 5, 2-4PM
- Monday, August 12, 2-4PM
- Monday, August 19, 2-4PM
- Monday, August 26, 2-4PM
The Personal Archiving Lab at Central Library supports conversion of VHS tapes, VHS-C tapes, DVDs (not BluRay), Audio cassettes, MiniDV tapes, Hi-8 tapes, photographs/negatives/slides, and paper-based documents. It does not support 8 or 16mm reel-to-reel film or audio tape.
For inquiries about the Personal Archiving Lab or tutorials please contact reference@madisonpubliclibrary.org (link sends e-mail).
Mini Archiving Lab at Sequoya Library (these are drop-in, no appointment necessary)
The Mini Personal Archiving Lab equipment supports VHS tapes, Audio cassettes, Photographs/negatives/slides, and paper-based documents. It does not support 8 or 16mm reel-to-reel film or audio tape.
If you would like to use the Mini Archiving Lab outside of one of the two times listed above, reach out to Sequoya Library via phone: 608-266-6385 or email: sequoya@madisonpubliclibrary.org (link sends email) to schedule a time to complete a short equipment tutorial.
Patrons who use either Personal Archiving Lab must bring some form of external storage — a portable hard drive, or a thumb drive (recommended) — on which digital files can be stored.