Historical Society seeks to save historic documents by
preserving them in a digital archive
A growing and aging collection of books, manuscripts,
photographs and other materials related to the history of San Juan
Bautista have increased the need for digital preservation of the
artifacts.
That prompted volunteer Ken Halla and other members of the
town’s Historical Society to begin The Digital San Juan Bautista
Project, designed to use modern technology to save the written and
oral history of the town for future generations.
Historical Society seeks to save historic documents by preserving them in a digital archive
A growing and aging collection of books, manuscripts, photographs and other materials related to the history of San Juan Bautista have increased the need for digital preservation of the artifacts.
That prompted volunteer Ken Halla and other members of the town’s Historical Society to begin The Digital San Juan Bautista Project, designed to use modern technology to save the written and oral history of the town for future generations.
For the past three months, Halla has begun by digitizing videotapes to store them on computer hard drives and DVDs. The 11 hours of video he has transferred so far contains interviews with several longtime San Juan residents. The society has more than 100 hours of interviews, presentations and events recorded on audio and video tapes. Halla has also scanned a collection of photographic slides documenting the 1975-76 restoration of Mission San Juan.
The archive, Halla said, “is substantial given the resources that are available to the Historical Society,” which operates the Luck Museum where Monterey, Second and Third streets meet. “There is information that I have stumbled upon that in my personal opinion is priceless. I’m certain we’ll be running across more material and information that is really of significant value to the community.”
The Historical Society is seeking volunteers to receive training on digitizing and preserving historic documents. In July, the organization approved spending $3,000 to purchase computer equipment to help with the digitization project.
“There’s a substantial amount of material that needs to be scanned,” Halla said. “We’d like to have members of the community volunteer. We would also hope that people would bring in historical documents or photos that they have in their home and make them accessible to the Historical Society and in exchange they’d receive training” on document preservation and computer scanning.
Society President Sheila Prader said the digital project is more than just creating a safety net for valuable historic items.
“Our interest is in preserving what we have beyond housing it,” she said. “Another interest is making it more available to the world at large and the world close at hand. We realize that because the membership of the society, in several instances, is aging, we need to be thinking about the future. We need to interest more people in being involved with us to help us preserve the material and make it available.”
She said volunteers can receive instruction on how to scan documents, how to understand copyright rules and how to inventory and catalogue materials. She is also hoping to train more people to staff the museum, which is now only open by appointment only.
“Every museum that I know of has the same issues that we do,” Prader said. “When we first began collecting, we did have ways to keep track of what we had and where it came from. But 46 years ago there weren’t computers or software programs to help us organize the material, so the process of taking an item into your collection can take quite a bit of time.”
The digitization project, much of which is being done in conjunction with help from the Community Media Access Partnership (CMAP) at Gavilan College, “will be an ongoing process,” she said, noting that the museum hopes to eventually have a larger space to store and display artifacts that trace the town’s history.
In the Luck Museum – a former gas station – and in the nearby Jim Jack Cabin, which dates to 1875, the Historical Society has more than a century’s worth of items that it hopes to preserve and share with the public in perpetuity.
“We want to share with people all that we have collected and we want to interest them in continuing the preservation of these materials,” Prader said. “San Juan is called the City of History. It’s the mission of this society to preserve and make available to the public anything and everything about the history of the city and the surrounding valley. We do have an incredible collection of materials that we really would like for other people to be aware of.”
The San Juan Bautista Historical Society will host an open house and its quarterly meeting on Saturday, Oct. 1 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Carl Martin Luck Memorial Park at Monterey and Third streets.
In addition to refreshments available to guests, Halla will show samples of some digitized video samples and demonstrate techniques for scanning historic documents. For more information, call Georganna Gularte at 623-2001.
