| Back in November 2013, I asked the late Rev. Dcn. Bob Carsner what he wanted to see accomplished with the EDEO's archives. One of his wishes was to see the diocese's microfilm collection scanned, disseminated, and preserved for future generations. After reviewing the collection, I found that it was in great condition. The collection consists of vital diocesan primary sources, including many hand-written church records. There are also micro-filmed copies of the old Oregon Trail Churchman. Last fall, Arthur Babitz and I worked on a newspaper digitization project at the History Museum of Hood River County. The History Museum partnered with the University of Oregon to scan brittle copies of the Hood River Glacier (1889-1899). I contacted Sheila Rabun, the Digital Project Manager at the University of Oregon (who worked with Arthur and I on the newspaper project) to help me figure out what to do with the diocese's microfilm collection. Shelia and her team agreed to scan the diocese's microfilm for a modest price. |
The University of Oregon's Knight Library provides the most professional scanning services in the state of Oregon. The library uses a ScanPro 1000 Digital Micro-film Scanner, which creates high resolution scans of micro-film, micro-fiche, and opaque micro-cards. The University of Oregon will retain copies of our collection for preservation purposes, but will only disseminate the information with our consent. In the future, if we decide to make our files keyword searchable, UO will run the files through Optical Character Recognition Software. However, OCR will only work for printed records; it will not register hand-written records. In the next few months, I will begin disseminating these digital records throughout the diocese.