Museum to digitize collection

As far as museums go, digitization is one buzz word that has everyone talking. Digitization is the process of taking physical objects and photos and creating electronic versions of those items, in order to better preserve them and provide greater access to them.

Cannon Beach History Center and Museum has been thinking about digitization since previous program director Tricia Gates Brown began scanning photos and saving them on the computer for posterity. Recently, the museum has been vying for various grant funds to support the digitization of the entire 12,000 + photo collection and the eventual digitization of all of the collection items, including newspaper clippings, library items, physical artifacts, and more. This is a long and complicated process, but the hope is that the museum will have all of its photo collection scanned and edited by the end of the summer.

Once all of the photos have been scanned and archived, and all objects have been photographed and entered into a database, the hope is to create a History Resource Station, which will be a computer research station housed in the museum that will allow visitors to learn more about any topic in the museum. Visitors will be able to view photo slide shows, watch videos, hear oral histories, and enjoy an interactive learning experience.

If you are interested in helping work on the History Resource Station plan or have time to scan photos and add descriptions and information to collection items, please call us at 503-436-9301.

Keep checking back for more information on our digitization process! We’ve got a long way to go, but it’s a small price to pay to bring history to life!