New York City continues to work toward historical document digitization
Like many municipalities nationwide, New York City is in the process of trying to scan and digitize massive quantities of its historical documents. However, the process hasn't always been easy due to the fragility of some files, and archivists are working to preserve them as much as they can, across a number of different mediums.
New York City has long had a sizable municipal archive, and holds about 243,000 cubic feet of records ranging from birth certificates and maps to film and photos, according to The New York Times. In 2013, it began an effort to digitize as many of those documents as it could, but had difficulty bulk scanning some of the older maps because they were simply too fragile to put into scanners with newer paper files, due to their being hundreds of years old.
New efforts
More recently, though, experts have been brought in to examine ways they can care for and digitize documents dating back to the 1700s, the report said. Ideally, the city would like to both keep the originals in as pristine condition as possible but also put it into a document management system so that they can be accessed whenever people need them. Some maps are even being dry cleaned with vacuums.
"It's really saving New York history," said Nora Ligorano, a conservator at the Archives. "We are the custodians of this history."
An unexpected source
In addition, archivists are now turning to decades-old New York City Police files for other types of historically important documents, the Times reported separately. Many surveillance photos taken at protests and other gatherings are now of great interest to historians, and combing through police archives helps to turn up documentation of these events and digitize the files.
A collection of these photos is now being displayed in a museum exhibit run by the New York City Department of Records and Information Services, the report said.
When municipalities need to handle and preserve both historical and modern files on an ongoing basis, finding the right document management services is a crucial first step. The more cities, towns, counties and so on can do to scan documents of some local import, the better off they will be when it comes to preserving their history.
