You’ll soon be able to digitize your old family tapes and photos for free at Chesapeake Public Library

Chesapeake Public Library will soon become the only library in Virginia to have its own memory lab where residents can transfer old VHS tapes, photos or documents to digital files.

The lab comes to Chesapeake thanks to a roughly $10,000 grant from the DC Public Library, which has run its own memory lab since 2016.

One of the reasons Chesapeake was chosen was because it sits near the coast and is prone to flooding and hurricanes, said Siobhan Hagan, project manager of the so-called Memory Lab Network at DC Public Library. So far, Hagan has awarded grants to libraries in states like California, which is vulnerable to wildfires, and Louisiana, which is also prone to hurricanes. The memory labs give people a way to preserve important family memories or documents before they’re lost to a natural disaster.

The lab solves another problem: people across the country are increasingly unable to play old family tapes as the once ubiquitous technology has become obsolete.

“You can lose something by it being destroyed,” Hagan said. “But also a lot of people have lost access to their VHS and their films because of the technology moving on.”

Zach Elder, Chesapeake Public Library’s deputy director, said they had seen a need from residents coming up and asking how to preserve old videos of their children from the 1980s and ’90s. The library applied in late 2019 and received the grant last year. The coronavirus pandemic delayed the start.

Chesapeake Public Library plans to use its new memory lab to scan and digitize this charcoal drawing of an unidentified African American woman from the late 19th or early 20th century. The drawing was donated to the library after someone found it as a backing to another piece of art. The memory lab will open to the public in October and allow residents to digitize family documents as well as audio and visual files. (Chesapeake Public Library/Chesapeake Public Library)

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The memory lab will open Oct. 1 on Central Library’s second floor, Elder said. It will be free to the public. Residents will have to make appointments online or by calling the library. Staff will train each person for a two-hour session on how to use the equipment. While you don’t need a Chesapeake library card to make an appointment, Elder said people will want one so staff can note that they finished the training and can use the lab.

DC Public Library has tried to stock up on VCR players and equipment needed to transfer the large audio and visual files but encourages libraries who get the grant to reach out to places in the community like local television stations, thrift shops or other companies that might have surplus equipment.

Elder said the library will be encouraging people to digitize not only their family memories caught on old tapes but important family documents like wills or land deeds. Residents should expect transfers of large audio and visual files to take a few hours and be prepared to bring their own external hard drive.

The lab will have other uses, too. Suzanne Snowden, who works for the library, will use the lab to help record and keep oral histories of military veterans from World War II and the Vietnam War.

Elder also plans to use the lab’s scanner to digitize a charcoal drawing of an unidentified African American woman. He believes the drawing, which was donated to them after someone found it as the backing of a piece of art, dates to the late 19th or early 20th century.

After scanning it, they plan to share the image with the public to help find out who she was.

Gordon Rago, 757-446-2601, gordon.rago@pilotonline.com