I was doing a lecture on “Saving Family” Treasures” for the New Castle County Library System, a few days ago. My programs tend to have lots of give and take with the audience as we discuss subjects and at the point where we were contemplating the preservation of photos, one of the library patrons asked about how to save old sounds and movies. In the 1960s and 1970s, her mother recorded lots of radio programs and other things and she has inherited those items.
I get these types of questions often. For example, I recall another library program where the patron had tapes from the Vietnam War. A brother was stationed in country and he would record his remarks and send them home.
One of the easiest ways to preserve these types of things is to check with a local camera store. Most of them have the capability to have the items digitized, and prices are usually reasonable.
Here’s an example of an 8-mm home movie that was recently digitized. Late in the afternoon of June 8, 1968, the long-delayed funeral train carrying the body of Senator Robert F. Kennedy to Washington passed through Elkton. It was around 6 p.m. and the train was about 4-hours late. Larry Beers, a teenager, took his 8-mm home movie camera and captured the scene that hot June afternoon so long ago. Recently the footage, which had been unseen for nearly 50 years, was retrieved and Professor Rein Jelle Terpestra digitized the film. Here is Larry’s 3-minute film with some introductory comments and a few additional photos