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 is not available at this time.
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, May 12, 2-4PM
- Monday, May 19, 2-4PM
Monday, May 26, 2-4PM(library closed for Memorial Day)- Monday, June 2 , 2-4PM
- Monday, June 9, 2-4PM
- Monday, June 16, 2-4PM
Monday, June 23, 2-4PM(no tutorials on this date)- Monday, June 30, 2-4PM
- Monday, July 7, 2-4PM
Monday, July 14, 2-4PM(no tutorials on this date)- Monday, July 21, 2-4PM
- Monday, July 28, 2-4PM
- Monday, August 4, 2-4PM
- Monday, August 11, 2-4PM
- Monday, August 18, 2-4PM
- Monday, August 25, 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 (we cannot digitize Hi-8 tapes at this time), 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 (these are drop-in, no appointment necessary)
- There are no available dates at this time
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.
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.