New Scanner
Peter Lee, Record staff Librarian Karen Ball-Pyatt tests the Kitchener Public Library’s new scanner, which is able to digitize large items and fragile items like city directories, ancestral diaries and historic newspapers.
Waterloo Region Record By Anam Latif / alatif@therecord.com
KITCHENER — A new book scanner at the Kitchener Public Library will help preserve heritage documents while making them more accessible. The Grace Schmidt local history room installed the new gadget a few months ago to digitize fragile city and county directories.
“It can be used for photographs, maps, anything that is oversized,” said Karen Ball-Pyatt, a local history librarian.
“Anything that is too fragile to take down and look through,” she added, noting that many of the library’s city directories are that delicate.
“It’s a great boon to genealogical and heritage researchers.”
The scanner won’t be available for public use until the digitization project is complete. Ball-Pyatt is expecting that to happen by spring.
