Library's ScanEZ system captures family memories
Family photo albums are a bit of a nostalgic conundrum, aren’t they?
We live in an age of constant connectivity, where our social media pages are like a constant feed into our lives. It’s curious to look back at old family photos that grandma and grandpa had been hoarding for decades to discover the parallels of our behavior. The camera improved, the storage has increased while the amount of space that photos take up has shrunken down to the palm of our hands, yet here we are, smiling grandma’s same smile from the same lakeside overlook she did when she was our age.
Years ago, my family lost a number of treasured photo albums to water damage. Those snapshots into the history of our family’s roots were wiped away forever, because we didn’t have the technology or the time to scan and store them. This was before the advent of smartphones or the cloud, when scanning photographs was a tedious, laborious process that could swallow several days.
Unless you work in an office, a digital scanner is likely not a priority item to own, even if you have stacks and stacks of family photo albums stuffed in the attic that give you anxiety to think about: what if mice get into them? Grandma would never forgive me!
Recently, the library had a new ScanEZ system installed upstairs by the Technology Desk. What is a ScanEZ system, you might ask? It’s a large digital scanning bed for uploading photos, as well as a smaller scanner designed for rapidly digitizing documents and sending them to email or any USB-capable device such as a thumb drive, external hard drive or SD card with an adapter.
Additionally, the ScanEZ system has an image enhancement feature that allows you to zoom in on images, enhance their details and alter the color which can breathe new life into those old Polaroids.
Did someone in your family travel abroad and bring home a mountain of papers written in another language? Before you start shelling out cash for a translator, bring the pile to the library, because the ScanEZ system can translate written text and audio files from up to 60 languages into English.
Unlike older scanning solutions, ScanEZ lives up to its name. It’s very easy to use and extremely user-friendly for patrons of all ages. Even the greatest technophobes of the family will have no problem quickly digitizing and saving precious family memories. Curious to try it? Stop by the Technology Desk upstairs at the Sandpoint Library. If you need some help, an attendant is 12 feet away and eager to help out.
Brenden Bobby can be reached at the East Bonner County Library, 1407 Cedar St., Sandpoint, by phone at 208-263-6930, or email at brenden@ebonnerlibrary.org.