We’ve recently installed hardware that allows us to digitize VHS tapes. The once ubiquitous medium is going the way of the punch card and the eight-inch floppy, so we’re archiving the titles before the tapes actually disintegrate. We came up with one simple criterion for selection: was the title already online or available on DVD? If so, we skipped it in order to preserve unique examples in our new Ephemeral VHS Collection.
I was going to pick a favorite or two to point out but I just don’t know where to start. This archive is going to keep me busy for hours.
Michael Sauers is currently the Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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From News from the Internet Archive #10: