Learn about creating a DIY memory lab for your library users to digitize their personal artifacts before they are lost to deterioration or obsolescence. The Brackett Preservation Lab (BPL) is a self-service space providing equipment, software, and training for library users to digitize their analog and print memorabilia. The lab includes equipment for digitizing VHS, DVD, Hi8, and Mini DV home movies and scanning photographs, documents, negatives, slides, yearbooks, scrapbooks, and more. It is available as a self-guided model, meaning we provide step-by-step instructions, but library users control the process from start to finish. The three-year Patterson Endowed Teaching Chair in Humanities award made the BPL possible.

Presenter: Angie Neely-Sardon is a Librarian and Assistant Professor II at Indian River State College. She has been the faculty librarian for the Brackett Library, a joint-use state college and public branch library located on the Mueller Campus in Vero Beach, FL, since August 2015. Angie holds a Master of Science in Library and Information Studies from Florida State University, along with two undergraduate degrees from the University of Florida. In August 2023, Angie was awarded the Patterson Endowed Teaching Chair in Humanities, which will fund the Brackett Preservation Lab—a DIY digitization lab for personal and regional archiving—for three years.