Grant to fund library ‘memory lab’

LAWTON – A $20,000 grant from the Oklahoma Historical Society to finance a digital conversion/memory lab at the Lawton Public Library was accepted Tuesday by the City Council.

The lab “will allow individuals to create digital archives of important family history, documents, photos, sound recordings, videos, and old files,” said Trait Thompson, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society. “This will transform and preserve mementos in digital formats which can be uploaded to personal storage devices or to cloud-based systems. Multiple copies can be shared with others and passed down to future generations.”

Digitizing “converts the items to a stable, reproducible, sharable opportunity,” Thompson said.