We talk to a lot of people working on personal and family histories who have audio or video recordings of relatives telling stories about how it was “back in the day.” Almost all of them are concerned that these cassettes or VCR tapes are deteriorating or that the equipment to play them is wearing out. They are worried that these pricesless recordings will be lost.

Today we’ll look at the segment of LifeHacker’s “Step-by-Step Guide to Digitizing Your Life” to see how to preserve audio and video tape.

Converting a cassette to a digital recording is easy. Cassette recorders players  stereo output ports and computers have stereo input ports which you can connect with an inexpensive 1/8” stereo cable. Any software capable of recording audio on your computer will work with the cassette player. LifeHacker recommends Audacity which is available for free download if you need recording software BIAS SoundSoap that can help remove imperfections in the recordings, such as crackle and hum.  Roxio Spin Doctor is software designed to help make the entire process easier.

For more detailed information LifeHacker offers an article titled Alpha Geek: How to Digitize Cassette Tapes. There’s a link below.

When converting analog-to-digital video your DV camera may have conversion capabilities   you can can use it to digitize just about any analog source.  All you’ll need to get it onto your computer is software that can handle a DV stream such as Apple’s iMovie and Final Cut Express/Pro (Mac) or Windows Movie Maker.  If you don’t have a digital video camera, you can also use TV Tuner cards with composite input or digital video bridges made specifically for the purpose of converting analog video.  For more information, Videohelp.org covers the analog-to-digital conversion process in greater detail.

Unfortunately on worn out VHS tapes the signal may jiggle and cut out. Recording it may require a professional VHS recording deck with a time corrector. If this is the case, it may be able to seek out a service which has the equipment to make the conversion for you.

If you have Hi8 tapes you have another option.  Sony created Digital8 camcorders that have the ability to digitize Hi8 tapes in-camera and output a DV signal.

Click here to read the complete LifeHacker Step-by-Step Guide to Digitizing Your Life

Click here for Alpha Geek: How to Digitize  Cassette Tapes

Click here for Videohelp.org.

Today we’ll continue our series of reports on LifeHacker’s Step-by-Step Guide to Digitizing Your Life with a look at digitizing photos.

Author Adam Dachis recommends using a flatbed scanner rather than a sheet-feed scanner because, “Some sheet-fed scanners can cause artifacts in photos…” Scanning at 300 dpi is a minimum acceptable level but 600 dpi “is generally the sweet spot for photo scans.” Dachis says, “…but, if you are scanning low resolution photos a higher DPI setting isn’t going to make a difference. If you scan several photos in a flatbed scanner you’ll need to separate each photos.” After scanning you may need to correct for color and image orientation using PhotoShop or other editing software. A separate Life Hacker article offers the Top10 Photo Fixing and Image Editing Tricks.

Flatbed scanners with transparency adapters will generally work for scanning slides and negatives. Dachis offers two suggestions for doing this type of  scanning:

• Because scanning negatives and slides involves enlarging a tiny image, dust can become a big problem.  You don’t want to actually touch the negative or slide, but you can remove dust using a can of compressed air.  You’ll also want to clean off the scanner bed each time you scan to avoid dust as well.  Compressed air will work here as well, but dust wipes are also very effective.
• When performing the actual scanning, the software included with your scanner may be your best option.  You’ll want to select specifically what you’re scanning, as you’re not necessarily looking to scan the negative but rather the positive reproduction of the negative.

Tomorrow we’ll look at digitizing audio recordings.

Click here to read the full LifeHacker Step-by-Step Guide to Digitizing Your Life

Click here for Top 10 Photo Fixing and Image Editing Tricks

Today we’ll look at LifeHacker.com’s suggestions on how to protect all of the paper records, letters and documents you’ve accumulated about your personal or family history from data rot – deterioration or destruction due to storage in places like hot garages or moldy basements.

Author Adam Dachis advises, “If you’re really taking the leap into a paper-free existence…you’re going to need an actual scanner suited for the job.” If your scanning needs are limited to documents:

• You may find that you have a multi-function printer which includes a flatbed or sheet feed scanner
• If not, Life Hacker offers a short list of recommendations
  • Fujitsu’s ScanSnap S1300 makes PDF creation simple and is a favorite in the paperless community. (Also see hour post on the S300, its predecessor.)
  • Canon’s imageFORMULA P-150 is a great portable choice, especially for Evernote users.
  • Apparent’s Doxie is a budget-conscious option that integrates well with the cloud.

Dachis adds, “Scanning software is another choice in the process.” His software recommendations include:

• Adobe Acrobat (Windows/Mac OS X) scans documents to the PDF format and can perform optical character recognition (OCR).
• VueScan (Windows/Mac OS X/Linux) supports over 1500 scanners, can save to PDF and offers a free trial.
• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard‘s Image Capture can save scans as PDF documents and perform visual adjustments.  It comes free with the operating system.
• Microsoft Office (Windows) can scan individual pages or to its proprietary MDI format as well as perform OCR.

Whatever scanning tools you choose Dachis cautions, “You’ll want to consider the following:

• The different types of paper you’ll be scanning and if your scanner can handle each size.
• Whether or not you’ll be scanning color documents and documents printed on non-white paper.
• If you’ll need software that can perform OCR.
• If you’ll need to scan any double-sided materials.
• The types of documents you’ll be scanning.  For example, are they all typed-text documents or will you be scanning handwritten notes as well?

Tomorrow we’ll look at preserving images and photographs.

Click here to read Dachis’ article at Life Hacker.

I have written about the problem of storing family and personal history records, memorabilia, photos and artifacts. The issue is sometimes called “data rot.” As we said in a previous post:

“Data rot refers mainly to problems with the medium on which information is stored,” Dag Spicer, curator of the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, told David Pogue of the N.Y. Times. People store things like photo albums in sweltering hot garages or moldy basements and they deteriorate or are even completely destroyed.Electronic technology doesn’t guarantee preservation either. Remember reel to reel tapes, cassettes, 8-Tracks, Betamax, VHS, and floppy disks? Don’t expect current methods of storage to meet a different fate. Spicer says, “50 years from, now we’re going to say, ‘We had these silver disks called CDs. And you you’d put them into a slot.’ And our grandkids will be laughing.”

Today we’d like to offer some suggestions about how to deal with the problem. The website LifeHacker.com recently offered a suggestion about what to do with all the material you’ve collected over the years: “Save it from obsolescence and digitize your life.”

In our next few posts we’ll summarize ideas from LifeHacker’s “The Step-by-Step Guide to Digitizing Your Life.” We’ll add some ideas that may pertain to issues specific to someone seeking to preserve her family or personal history.

We’ll begin tomorrow with how to deal with all the paper you’ve accumulated.

In yesterday’s post I discussed why it’s important to take the step beyond researching your family history and write about it.

We meet a lot of people who are working on their family histories. Most of them say that they intend to publish a book on that history. But not yet. They have more research to do. They’ll be ready to begin working on their book in six months, a year, two years or some indeterminate date in the future. I understand. Whenever you are researching there are always more sources to check, more leads to pursue, more stories to uncover.

For all of us who are addicted to research, The Genealogy Forum offers some cogent advice on the subject “How Do I Write a Family History.” They advise: “You don’t have to wait until all your research is done to start!”

The Forum offers some ideas of questions on how to limit the subject for a book. They include:

• Do I want to trace one surname completely? or several connected families? or all my family lines?
• What is the time frame I am interested in?
• Do I want to do an entire history or just trace the family while they lived in a particular place?

By limiting your focus, you can write about what you know. Get it published and share it with your family members. Your book will mean a lot more to future generations than raw research data.

Does that mean your research is at an end? Of course not. Learn more and write a second volume with your new findings.

Click here to see the full GeneaologyForum.com post.

In a recent blog post at Jilele.com Issac Benfer advises genealogists who might consider writing a book to start a website instead. His advice is yet another example of the logical fallacy of the false dilemma. It’s not an either or choice.

Benfer’s comments on Cyndi Howell’s (of Cyndi’s List) book Planting Your Family Tree Online which is “is designed to take you step-by-step through the process of creating a genealogy Web site.”

I absolutely agree with the book’s premise that creating a website is an important tool for anyone interested in doing serious research on family history. It’s Benfer’s conclusion that a website will make a book unnecessary that I disagree with.

It seems Mr. Benfer had a bad experience with publishing. He recalls:

“Twenty years ago, using only a very simpleminded computer as a glorified typewriter, I put together a thick volume of lineage on part of my wife’s family, the result of more than a decade of close research. Because of my very limited budget, the production values were poor and fewer than two hundred copies were printed and mailed.”

Having discovered websites in the interim he now recommends: “Publishing on the Web is the least expensive and mostly widely accessible method of disseminating to others what you’ve learned.”

What Mr. Benfer ignores is that a virtual revolution in book publishing has occurred in the twenty years since his less than successful effort. As we have discussed several times in this blog, digital publishing and print-on-demand have made it possible for a self-publishing author to create a bookstore quality, heirloom book, even with a “very limited budget” like Mr. Benfer’s. And that’s not even considering formats like e-books.

More importantly, Mr. Benfer concludes that a website is superior because, “Your research is always a work in progress anyway.”

It is here that we part ways. The problem is that there is a very great distinction between research and publication. Research is the gathering of information – raw data. Publication is a product of reflection on that data to analyze, organize and draw a conclusion from it.

I’ve spent over forty years researching and publishing on California and San Francisco history. Through those years I’ve taught several thousand students that a historian should always try to answer three questions about whatever he is studying:

• What is your evidence? How do you know this is true?
• From whose point of view is it true?
• So what? Why is this important?

These questions apply to family history as much as they do to any other historical study. Posting exhaustive research data on a website won’t answer them. Only when someone makes the effort to draw conclusions can we learn the answers. That means preparing one’s research for publication.

A person who wants to go beyond research to become a “family historian” might very well need a website to aid in gathering data, but she also needs a book to her share what that data means and why it’s important.

Click here to read Issac Benfer’s post.