The Scanner arrives!

An exciting event occurred last week at the library. The book scanner that we had purchased with a grant from the EMC Cultural Heritage Fund arrived! (See June 7th blog post “Library Receives Cultural Heritage Grant” for information about this grant.) Two large boxes came by train from Kyiv, and then two days later, the technician from the company arrived to set up the scanner and train library workers on how to use it.

Because of the EMC grant, the library was able to purchase an Atiz BookDrive DIY scanner capable of scanning books and newspapers to a digital format. The scanner uses two cameras to produce high quality images which are then transferred to a computer. Having this specialized piece of equipment will allow the library to begin the long process of scanning their document collection and converting them to a digital format which will then be made available to the public via the Library website. This is particularly important for the library’s collection of rare books and newspapers which are in danger of deteriorating to the point of being unreadable and are no longer available to library patrons. Some of these documents are the only copy in existence and the loss of them would mean one more piece of Crimean Tatar history would be gone forever. It is vital to the mission of the Gasprinsky Library as “the keeper of the memory of the Crimean Tatar people” that these rare documents are transferred to a digital format, not only to preserve that memory, but also to make Crimean Tatar history available to people worldwide.

Two big boxes containing the scanner arrive on the train from Kyiv.
The technician arrives two days later and begins to assemble the scanner.
He begins to train library staff how to use the scanner.

The technician shows how to adjust the cameras to get the highest quality images.
The scanner is ready to start the work of digitizing the library's collections.