Advertisement Digitization: Preserving the Past to Preserve the Future.

I can never put my finger on the reason why, but I absolutely love how businesses use technology... let me be more specific. This website is the New York Times, and they are looking for the public's help. If you have any free time or are bored one day, you should check it out. New York Times is digitizing their advertisements, but they can't do it alone. Their system is simple, all you have to do is view the ads and click whether they are multiple ads, a single ad, part of an ad, or not an ad and you are assisting them in digitizing history. This is especially fascinating to me due to the fact that in my undergrad, I specialized in historical southern advertisement. If you'd like, you can also "tag" advertisements so they can be searched for more efficiently, or you can transcribe the advertisements. I have to say I have done all of the above, and as a librarian and a historian, I find it extremely rewarding to be able to help someone else.

This is what technology is now, it is a collaboration of minds. No one has to go through something alone anymore, no one has to feel bad about asking for help. If you build it, they will come. So far I've really enjoyed the simple interface and I must admit, I spent a good two hours on it yesterday evening and didn't even realize how many I had gone through, but the good news? It has a tracker so you know how much you have contributed to the digitization of the New York Times newspaper, and doesn't that give you a warm and fuzzy?

As a librarian, I really feel like we sometimes forget the tools and means that are out there to assist us. The community wants libraries to do well, so why do we not seek out their occasional help? I truly believe we are the hub of communities and where most history and knowledge is located. Sure, there are some set backs, the possibility of inconsistencies, the chance that someone is doing nothing but trolling their work, but I'm sure glancing over and checking these statistics is much better than hand tagging everything yourself or transcribing for hours yourself when you could be contributing your time to another aspect of this project, as a librarian. So, go and check it out, I guarantee you will get caught up in volunteering towards a great cause.