On a quest to find our history (03/25/2009)

Kit is on a quest.

He fears that a chunk of local history might slide into obscurity, forgotten in some old boxes on their way to the landfill, and he needs your help in its rescue.

Kit is Kit Galloway, a Portland guy and a classmate from high school who built a pretty impressive career as a cutting edge electronics artist. He's been involved with work for the Olympics, the Getty Museum in California, and a number of universities.

What he's looking for are images from his hometown from the mid 1950s to mid 1960s, old photographs and old home movies that could be digitized for electronic preservation and potential use for projects on the Web.

Fortunately, the Jay County Historical Society has been on the case. Tireless volunteers there have scanned hundreds and hundreds of old photographs - not just from the era Kit's interested in but all the way back to the earliest pictures available. The society's also not just interested in Portland but all of Jay County.

By scanning the photos, digitizing them, the historical society guarantees they'll be preserved and also makes them easier to share.

Jane Spencer of the historical society tells me that scanned material is then burned onto CDs.

Duplicates and triplicates of the CDs are produced, and at least one set is kept off-site from the museum for protection.

In Kit's case, the era from our childhood to our teenage years is the one with the most appeal. He's even offering a bounty on some of the images he dreams of tracking down.

He's prepared to pay $50 for a good, clear photograph of Portland's downtown Christmas decorations circa 1955-1962. He's prepared to pay $100 for a good, clear photo of the Sky-Vue Drive-In sign during the same era. And he'd pay $150 for movie film from that era of downtown Portland.

Home movies, Spencer says, can be transferred to videotape and the video can then be transferred to a DVD.

Though the historical society's interest is broader both in terms of time span and geography, she welcomes Kit's quest.

When it comes to old photos and old movies of Jay County, the more the merrier.

What's the end product of all this gathering and digitizing?

That's hard to say, largely because the possibilities are almost endless.

Could a Web-based digital archive be created that would allow access for scholars, history buffs, and genealogists?

Could electronic artists like Kit create new works by combining, editing, and enhancing images from a variety of sources?

Could the historical society market DVDs of home movies that focused on events like parades, fairs, or fires?

Could the historical society market CDs with digital photo albums focusing on individual communities like Dunkirk or Redkey or Bryant?

The answer to all of those questions is probably yes.

The key is to cast as wide a net as possible, get the images into the hands of the historical society and its volunteers, and build a digital archive that could serve as the launching pad for any number of projects in the years ahead.

I don't know about you, but that sounds to me like a worthwhile quest.[[In-content Ad]]