Robert LaRose speaks with Jordan Pascale, who began digitizing his family's multi-format media collection after it was almost destroyed by flooding.
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Voiceover 0:00
DC Public Library Podcast is made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and is a production of the Labs at DC Public Library.
Robert 0:35
You're listening to DC Public Library Podcast recorded from the Labs recording studio in the historic modernized Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown Washington DC. This is Memories on Tap, where we highlight the stories of people who use the Memory Lab, the library's DIY digital preservation space. I'm your host, Robert LaRose, and I'm a librarian in the Labs at DCPL. As part of the Labs department at MLK Library, we have a do it yourself workstation for digitizing video and audio recordings in a variety of formats, and for scanning photographs, 35 millimeter slides and negatives. This space is known as the Memory Lab. Since 2016, residents of the DC area have been using the lab to save the memories contained in their precious personal items. You can learn more by visiting dclibrary.org/labs/memorylab. So the purpose of this series is to feature the stories of people who have used the Memory Lab to preserve their precious personal collections. My guest today is Jordan Pascale, who digitized a number of different formats in the lab. What you're about to hear is a conversation I had with Jordan about his experiences in the lab and going through his project of digitizing his materials, and what resulted from his work.
All right. Well, thank you very much for being here.
Jordan 2:30
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Robert 2:32
To start, I just wanted to kind of ask you to give a little background on yourself and what initially brought you to the Memory Lab.
Jordan 2:41
Yeah, so my name is Jordan Pascale. I've lived in DC for about three years. And I guess what brought me to the Memory Lab... I grew up in Nebraska. My my I've moved out to Northern, or I'm sorry, Norfolk, Virginia, a couple years ago, my mom moved out there temporarily. But then she had to move back to Nebraska job didn't work out, kind of had to leave quickly to get you know, to the next job, but had to leave a whole storage unit of stuff behind. So I think this was 2019 we get this phone call from the storage unit and said, hey, there's some water dripping in by water dripping. They mean, a lot of water is dripping in your storage, you know, like standing water kind of thing. Yeah, it was we roll up. And of course, my mom's in Nebraska. So my girlfriend and I head down and take care of it. And yeah, wet paper getting moldy, like just a scenario that like you don't want your personal mementos and kind of like cherished photos and all that stuff being in that environment. So I've always been fascinated with, you know, like our family's history and old photos and old videos and stuff. And I've never owned any of that stuff. I'm 34 so like, my parents still have all that stuff, you know, living in DC not a ton of storage room for for old photos and that kind of stuff. So but so this was kind of the first chance access that I had to all of this stuff, we needed to get it out of there. So I took it home with me and all our photos, all our videos and all that and so, because it was the first time that I could, you know, have access to this, I was like, I want to make sure that this stuff doesn't get ruined, whether it's another flood or just, you know, the the march of time, you know, it tapes out last forever. So I wanted to make sure that I could preserve some of this stuff that one I hadn't seen and to just for my own history.
Robert 4:50
Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah, you never know what's gonna happen.
Jordan 4:54
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, even you know, I was listening to an on the media podcast about five or six years ago, and they were talking about how things get preserved digitally now to and so, you know, they say tape and photos and stuff is, you know, film negatives is good long term, obviously, you know, for space storage not as good. But, you know, even these hard drives and thumb drives and things that we keep on nowadays, it's hard to know how long that will last in the future will formats change? Will databases break down all this sort of stuff? So I wanted to kind of have at least one solid set of things and one digital things that hopefully will kind of last into the future.
Robert 5:36
Yeah. So did you keep the originals as well?
Jordan 5:40
Yeah. So um, yeah, they're still in the closet taking up some space. But there's, um, yeah, there was quite a quite a bit of videos and had, gosh, about a, let's say, probably 25 different types of things. And it ranges from regular VHS tapes that we remember from the 80s and 90s, to this format called VHS-C, which I didn't know about, from, I guess, the earlier 80s and 70s.
Robert 6:10
Basically, just a miniature version of VHS.
Jordan 6:13
Yeah, the mini DV, like, you know, kind of camcorder tapes that you might remember from the 90s. And then even my grandparents, eight millimeter films from the 60s and 70s and 50s, when, when my parents were growing up, so just a wide array of things, none, which I could play. I mean, they're all just formats that I've had a VCR since you know, I've been a kid. Just all stuff that you can't really watch or consume. So, you know, the having the lab here, with VHS and a few things. It allowed me to see things I haven't been able to see.
Robert 6:50
That's, that's so awesome. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people who come in here are seeing things for the first time. Like, since it actually happened.
Jordan 7:02
Absolutely. Yeah.
Robert 7:03
That's just so special. I think it's a really special service that we provide.
Jordan 7:09
It really is. And, you know, it's, it really does take a little bit of initiative. And one, you know, I didn't know where to do this, how to do this. I was thinking I was going to be buying, you know, VHS players and camcorders. And yeah, I did, I ended up getting a few things that, that the lab doesn't have, but, but a lot of the stuff I you know, just could pop in and sit and, you know, from my first day that I was born, but you know, my brother's early birthdays, you know, like, seeing grandparents and, you know, people you haven't seen for 10 years and don't remember what they sound like, you know, so it's it is really powerful. And, yeah, you know, luckily, I had a lot of good happy memories from childhood. I mean, for other probably depends on you know, who you were and your family history and stuff. But but it is real, it is really powerful. You know, photos do a lot. I have a ton of old photos for my grandparents from visiting the Grand Canyon in the 60s, and you know, my mom's you know, first car and her older dog in stuff, which is great. But video just is it really connects you in such a different way that photos just don't. I mean, to hear to see the the way people move in, you know, like, you know, my my baby video, I think, you know, just born how much love there was in that room? You don't you get a little bit of photos. But you get so much more of that with video.
Robert 8:45
Absolutely.
Jordan 8:45
Yeah.
Robert 8:46
Yeah. And the the camera doesn't hide anything.
Jordan 8:51
No, no.
Robert 8:52
You see it exactly as it was.
Jordan 8:54
Yeah.
Robert 8:54
Regardless of how you remember it.
Jordan 8:56
Yeah. Yeah. And that's and that's the funny part. Because I mean, you know, I, like, I don't have a ton of memories from childhood, like, I remember kind of more vignettes. And like, you know, real specific things or times in life. And what video does is Yeah, like it shows exactly. It fills in the gaps of what you know, your memory doesn't have. So it's really cool to see that.
Robert 9:20
Yeah. So you mentioned I see you have your hard drive.
Jordan 9:25
Yes, I brought my hard drive. I actually uploaded a few things to YouTube as well. So yeah, we can dive into some of that stuff if we want or...
Robert 9:36
Well, it's really important that you mentioned that nobody knows, you know, just uncertainty about how long digital media even born-digital things, but the devices that you save your digitized things on, you know, they're no more than for the most part no more than 20 years old. The technology, or not that much more. So, I mean, we have, like you had the film reels, those are 50, 60 years old. They're not in perfect condition, but they're still around. We don't know if digital things will actually be more durable or less.
Jordan 10:21
It's a good question. I mean, you know, I know, we all probably have had a hard drive fail, at some point. I remember, you know, when I was in college in 2008, or nine, I remember, you know, losing papers and losing projects and all that, because the hard drive fails. I mean, I specifically bought a solid state hard drive that doesn't have as many moving parts and like, hopefully, is a little bit, you know, longer term sort of thing. But, yeah, I mean, it's the physical thing is good backup, and hopefully, yeah, this will last a long time. And I've tried to like, put them a bunch of places, I uploaded them to YouTube, and you know, just put them private or unlisted, and, you know, have the digital as well. But yeah, it's, I mean, I'm a journalist, and some of the stuff that I wrote 10 years ago, aren't, you know, like, I go back to click on old links, and it's just not there. You know, so it really takes a lot of, you know, digital upkeep. You know, different systems over time, and different websites and the newspaper changed companies. So you know, it's like, you've got all this stuff that like, doesn't guarantee that your things that you think are going to be around on the internet forever are.
Robert 11:32
Yeah, and they maybe change their server, providers... You know, this information is really not your own.
Jordan 11:44
Yeah.
Robert 11:45
It seems that some tech companies that offer cloud storage solutions are actually moving towards that way for all like, if you have local storage on your machine...
Jordan 12:01
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Robert 12:03
So it's like stripping ownership completely. From all of your stuff, regardless of where it's stored.
Jordan 12:09
Yeah.
Robert 12:10
Kind of scary. And we'll have to watch out for that.
Jordan 12:12
Yeah, I've got Yeah, I've got my whole, my whole photo library in Google, you know, Google Photos. So knock on wood. You know, it doesn't, doesn't fail, because...
Robert 12:24
Get them on there.
Jordan 12:24
Yeah, yeah.
Robert 12:25
That hard drive.
Jordan 12:26
I really should make it back like a full backup, because I think I've got I don't know, stuff. Now up to five years ago, or something, but there's been a lot of photos in the last five years. So...
Robert 12:35
Yeah.
Jordan 12:36
Yeah.
Robert 12:36
Well, so you mentioned you're a journalist. So now. Well, before that, actually, I wanted to say it's it's so good that you kept the originals.
Jordan 12:47
Yeah.
Robert 12:48
Because a lot of people tend to think understandably, like, I need to free up all this storage - physical storage space.
Jordan 12:56
Yeah.
Robert 12:57
So I'll come in here and put it all on on cloud storage or whatever. That takes up much less space than a box of VHS tapes. But like we were saying before, you really don't know how long the digital stuff is going to last either. It's really it's not so much updating it as much as replicating it.
Jordan 13:23
Right.
Robert 13:24
So you're not getting rid of the originals. You're just replicating it so that there's less stuff to get destroyed.
Jordan 13:32
Right. Right. Yeah, and yeah, it's yeah, I think multiple copies. And I mean, you know, some of the beauties of you know, digitizing this stuff is that you can share it so much, easily, much more easily. And I mean, like I said, I started this about a year ago. Today would you know, mid August 20... Oh, my gosh...
Robert 13:55
I guess about two years ago.
Jordan 13:56
Yeah, I guess it would have been two years. Yeah. So this has been a really long project for me. Um, but yeah...
Robert 14:01
I mean, the last year has kind of been...
Jordan 14:03
Yeah, last year...
Robert 14:04
Lost time a little bit.
Jordan 14:05
Right. So this would have been, yeah, August 2019. So yeah, two years. But so yeah, started, I don't know, six months before the pandemic, but there's a lot of material I mean, I have no idea how many hours but what the pandemic really gave me which was great was time. I ended up buying a little eight millimeter reel-to-reel digitizer no audio or anything, but I don't think there was audio back then anyways. Um...
Robert 14:36
Probably not.
Jordan 14:37
Yeah...
Robert 14:37
Unless, I mean, on those old eight millimeter, eight millimeter probably not. 16 millimeter I think does sometimes have audio.
Jordan 14:45
Right.
Robert 14:45
You can actually see the little, the waveforms...
Jordan 14:48
Yeah
Robert 14:48
Next to the frames.
Jordan 14:49
Right. And so I was able to do that during during the pandemic. And then, you know, it was great for me to watch but I you know, I have no idea I can recognize my parents or my mom and I can recognize my grandparents and my aunt, but like, I don't know, who like a lot of these people are, what they were doing right and things like that. But the pay the pandemic was so great that it gave me the time to, you know, run these whole, you know, they're 30 minute reels, but it, it digitizes frame by frame by frame by frame. And so it takes a good, you know, two and a half hours to do a 30 minute thing.
Robert 15:26
Yeah, I think I've used one of those before as well.
Jordan 15:28
Yeah.
Robert 15:29
For, you know, like a three minute reel, is gonna take about 20 to 30 minutes to scan.
Jordan 15:37
Yeah, it's a very patient process. But once I was able to digitize and, you know, upload to YouTube, and then my mom and I jumped on a zoom call for half an hour and just watched this together. So she hadn't seen for the same thing, probably 40 years or something like that. And so, but she, she, you know, remembered certain bits of it could tell me who the people were, and I recorded all that. Because, again, I have no idea. These aren't my memories. But, um, so yeah, it's kind of like a multi step process. It does. It's super time intensive, but it's also a big labor of love. If it's something that you do love. And I do.
Robert 16:13
Yes, yeah. Yeah. It seems like a lot of people who come to use the Memory Lab are kind of the not necessarily the oddball in their family, but the one that is actually interested in family history, or genealogy or different things like that.
Jordan 16:38
Yeah.
Robert 16:40
And generations down the line are probably going to thank you. And people like you, for actually saving this stuff.
Jordan 16:50
You know, my grandma on my dad's side did genealogy. And I don't, I basically know, pretty much just my immediate family and stuff. But you know, she would go back hundreds of years. And you know, like, like I said, you know, it knew where we emigrated from in Italy, and all that stuff. And she was doing this stuff in the 90s. Before, you know, the internet was super popular.
Robert 17:10
Yeah, before Ancestry...
Jordan 17:12
Yeah, before, like, these services that made it super easy. And so I can't imagine doing all that. But, but yeah, I mean, that like to have that stuff accessible and available. And to be able to shoot a link to family or, you know, we have a family Facebook group, I can drop that. And then you know, everyone can watch it, everyone can enjoy it. And, you know, have these great memories and see these like awful outfits that they're wearing, like the bad hair or whatever. It's really a fun time capsule.
Robert 17:42
Yeah, and then they can even download it on their machines, and then that backs it up even further.
Jordan 17:51
Yeah. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, my, my, I guess it's my grandpa's brother's wife. Her husband passed away during the pandemic. And I was able to send those eight millimeter tapes. And, you know, she was able to see, you know, them as young, you know, 20 and 30 year olds, and that brought a lot of joy to her, you know, after her husband passed, so yeah, there's just, it's, it's it. Yeah, it's a really a gift that like, is you can't you can't buy that, you know, so yeah, it's it's valuable.
Robert 18:29
Yeah. Yeah. Well, so most of the stuff you clearly had multiple formats.
Jordan 18:35
Yeah. Lot of formats.
Robert 18:37
What... I guess you sort of talked a little bit already. It kind of went from your grandparents, eight millimeter film, which, unfortunately, is a format, of course, we can't accommodate in the lab yet. But you were still able to save those in a way that works for you.
Jordan 18:59
Yeah.
Robert 19:00
And your family.
Jordan 19:01
Yeah.
Robert 19:01
So what else, um... I mean, it sounds like you got decades of history. Family history.
Jordan 19:07
Yeah. Yeah.
Robert 19:08
What... What were the I guess, what was the... What did your family tend to preserve, to record? Because different families have different? You know, like, on my mother's side, I have way more pictures. A few home movies. No, like audio of any kind. On my dad's side, because my grandparents were, it was a more musical family. They tended to record more like quarter inch or half inch audio tape.
Jordan 19:47
Interesting.
Robert 19:48
On reel to reel.
Jordan 19:49
Yeah.
Robert 19:50
So I have that from them. But very few home movies.
Jordan 19:56
Yeah.
Robert 19:57
So like what did you, what did your family tend to save?
Jordan 20:00
Yeah, no, that's really fascinating, um, that, you know, those one audio tape, which I thought was kind of weird, not weird, but it was, there was only one audio tape and it was my my brother's, like, I think it was his first words, but like, right after they got, you know, just kind of babbling and that kind of stuff. And it was it was really great. I mean, the audio is interesting, because that's also a super intimate, you know, format. But, but yeah, it's really interesting. And I kind of think about it in terms of probably how expensive the stuff would have been back in the day. By my mom's side wasn't my grandpa built houses and you know, they had a nice living, but they weren't by any means, like, you know, super rich or anything like that. And, and I have no idea like how much an eight millimeter tape would have cost back in the day, how much you know, film recorder would have cost back in the day, but...
Robert 20:58
I think I think it was an investment.
Jordan 21:00
I think, yeah, I think this was like very special. And so what they would they first recorded, it's really great. It's, it's these vignettes. And my grandma, God bless my grandma had note cards, index cards of each little thing written out on it, of, you know, what each event and date and where they went. That's, it was great. So because I would have had no idea the first one I loaded up in the, in the in the reel to reel machine is just a bear, like right next to their car. Yeah. And it's it's like everyone's who's very casual about this bear being like, literally like four feet from the car. But that was Yosemite back in the day. And so lots of vignettes from just like really cool old vacations that you only see like kind of postcards nowadays, like a lot of stuff from like California and my grandparents went to like Vegas a lot and just like these really great old swimming pools and like the signs are totally like kind of like, kinda got that Jetson-y, you know, kind of 60s mod feel and it's...
Robert 22:11
It's space age.
Jordan 22:14
Very, very space age-y and so it not only am I seeing, you know, their vacations, but you're also just getting, you know, the cars, the buildings, the architecture, all the great kind of time capsule of the 60s. The last one that I'm saving is a trip to Washington, because I'm very curious. I haven't done that one yet. But it's I think, Washington that's 65 or 70 era. And I can't wait to see what that looks like now that I've been here for three years and...
Robert 22:44
So DC, not Washington state?
Jordan 22:46
Yes. Yeah. Washington DC. Yeah. So we've got, yeah, I'm sure Smithsonian and monument and that type of stuff. But, so yeah, those those eight millimeter tapes, a lot of family stuff, a lot of family gatherings and a lot of vacations. And so I think they, you know, obviously use them for the special times. And saved it for that. And that's was just really cool. Well, because, you know, you see your your grandparents, as young parents, you know, and you just don't get that chance...
Robert 23:19
Yeah, it's your parents as kids.
Jordan 23:21
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, great, my grandparents went to, I think it was, it was, it was at Dodger Stadium, and I can't remember if it was like, I can't remember who the other team was playing. But it was like, I looked up the year and like, who would have been on those teams, and it's like, Sandy Koufax. And like, all these, you know, players that you're like, Oh my god, you know, I know those guys. But like, they went and saw them, you know, like, you know, saw them pitch in a World Series. Like,
Robert 23:49
That's cool.
Jordan 23:49
Yeah, it's so I've had just a ton of fun doing that, to the 80s stuff that I've found when I was a kid. It's births, it's birthdays, family gatherings, there's some just like really kind of like downtime, like, can't really tell like what, it doesn't seem like there's an event going on or something just like...
Robert 24:13
It's just casual.
Jordan 24:14
It's just casual. And you know, I think you know, we've got everything in our phone now. We've got we can do audio, we do video, we do photos, we do anything we want. And I'm so rarely take video ever of like, downtime, downtime, or vacations or anything. And to me, those were kind of the most interesting aspects of everything that I watched because it was just... you just saw what your house looked like and what, you know, the interactions between your parents and the interactions between like me and my brother and and you just get these like really mundane kind of slices of life that like don't...
Robert 24:54
All of a sudden become really interesting.
Jordan 24:58
Yeah, and and So I haven't actually done it as much as I want to, I really probably should have been taken video during the pandemic, of just what that experience was like. But I really need to start doing more of that just kind of like 10, 20 seconds of whatever, because I think I'll really cherish that for myself a long time from now, but...
Robert 25:22
Probably.
Jordan 25:23
Yeah, it's just, you know, I don't have kids yet or anything like that. And I mean, obviously, like vacations, we take a lot of photos and I think live photos on on iPhone where you can, you know, hold it down, and I'll turn it into like a two second mini video sort of thing...
Robert 25:37
Right.
Jordan 25:37
That'll give you kind of snippets and vignettes of what's going on. But yeah, I really need to start taking care, even if just like a minute or whatever, just set it up and let it roll and see what happens. Probably nothing but...
Robert 25:48
Sure. But you'll get you'll get a more, you know, it's not as contrived as people posing for a photo.
Jordan 25:57
Exactly.
Robert 25:58
It's more natural.
Jordan 25:59
Exactly.
Robert 26:00
You know, what life is actually like.
Jordan 26:03
Yeah, and there's so much of that in the videos and stuff. Like it's my mom was actually telling me like, there was, I think her either high school graduation or I can't think of a term it's not baptism, but like when you're 13, confirmation.
Robert 26:15
Oh confirmation, yes.
Jordan 26:22
You know, and they would just do these like really kind of funny contrived things like on these eight millimeter tapes from like, the 60s and 70s. And I guess it was, since it was like a newer consumer technology, like, they didn't like really know what to do. And so like, you get like a bunch of these like, throughout these like five or six reels, you get like a bunch of like, people just like walking out the front door, and like waving and like saying hello, and like lining up. And it's very cute. But it's just like kind of an odd thing. That'd be like, no one would ever take a video of that nowadays of like, you know, just your whole family like walking out the door and saying hi, but...
Robert 26:57
Right.
Jordan 26:58
Yeah, so it really ranges. But yeah, and then, then there's some stuff like this 90s. I remember, this is when I started to like remember things more. And these are like these high...
Robert 27:14
Hi8?
Jordan 27:14
Camcorder, Hi8, thank you, which is like another one of those formats...
Robert 27:18
Another one we can't do here, unfortunately.
Jordan 27:20
So I bought a camcorder from the 90s on eBay, because this is the only way I could figure out how to do it. And I still haven't gotten it right. But I mean, like I said, I grew up in Nebraska and Nebraska was incredible in football back in the 90s when like three national championships, but I was 8... 7, 8, 9 when those happened. And so like I remember that being a big part of my life, but I didn't know what that felt like or like, we've been awful for 20 years. So I don't I don't remember any of that. But there's video of like, going to like autograph sessions and like, you know, when they get off the plane coming home for a championship and like we're there and that kind of stuff. And at the at the autograph session. It's like, at a Hy-Vee grocery store. And like, we're all waiting in line and like, you hear over the announcement like the, the, the signing is over. And you can just hear me being like super upset. I don't know an eight or nine year old just be like, What do you mean, it's over? waited like two or three hours. And so just random anecdotes and stuff like that. That's like kind of fun to look back at then it's funny. Yeah, yeah.
Robert 28:31
The thing you mentioned about people like, kind of not knowing what to do in front of the video camera. It's sort of like how back when photography was first invented. Nobody was smiling. They just looked.
Jordan 28:51
Yeah, [unintelligible] all the daguerreo, daguerreo... type....
Robert 28:56
Oh, daguerreotypes.
Jordan 28:59
Daguerreotype, I love that format. I just think that's so cool. But yeah...
Robert 29:03
There's a lot of depth in those images.
Jordan 29:04
There is.
Robert 29:06
You don't necessarily get now.
Jordan 29:08
Yeah. Yeah. And it kind of feels like almost haunting. And I guess just because it's like, old and you know, you see...
Robert 29:16
Sort of spooky...
Jordan 29:17
Yeah, like...
Robert 29:18
They're kind of cloudy images, sometimes...
Jordan 29:20
Civil War type stuff. A lot of that stuff, just is, is so fascinating. I think there's a photographer in DC, that are doing photos down in Ward seven and eight of those old type of photographs. And I'm just so enamored, I would love to see that process. But yeah, there's just because the technology I mean, I don't know, I don't know how old photography is 150...
Robert 29:27
Roughly.
Jordan 29:29
Something a little longer than that. But I mean, you know, in the grand scheme of things, a pretty new technology and it's just, it's incredible. I mean, even just from the 50s, 60s to the 90s and now, how many formats? So yeah, it's it's a fascinating, fascinating process.
Robert 30:07
And none of them were created with the goal of lasting.
Jordan 30:11
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's, that's...
Robert 30:13
It's just to turn a profit. Which, you know, that's they're a company. That's what they do. But, and then...
Jordan 30:20
What I ran into, I mean, some of those camcorder tapes, audio is degraded, fuzz. So I mean, it's really important to if you have this stuff, to not wait, because, you know, depending on how it was stored, or you know how old it is, like, just get it done. Yeah. Like, you never know when it might go. So. Yeah,
Robert 30:43
That's, that's certainly true. [Laughter]. So was there anything from the stuff that you do remember? Or maybe that your parents remember? or older family members? Was there anything that you or they remembered differently? Or maybe they were surprised by when they looked at the stuff that you digitize?
Jordan 31:09
Um, that's a good question. Um, I don't know if like, remember differently. Something that my mom remembered vividly which I was shocked by, but [laugher] it... And I was telling her about what I was digitizing her old stuff. And it was my aunt's, her sister's, birthday. And she told me the story before but like, you know, I kind of forgot or whatever, but my mom or my, my aunt got this, like, beautiful, like, velvet band watch, which was like, I don't know, fancy big deal, whatever. My mom like, coveted this watch, like, loved it. Wanted it so bad. Found the video from that day. And like of my aunt opening that present. And you legit can see my mom's scowl, and like getting mad, like I wanted that watch. And so, just so fascinating to see like that, that was so important to her. Like, that was something that she cared about enough that like, she remembered that so vividly. And like the videos like, Yep, exactly that.
Robert 32:19
Confirming it.
Jordan 32:19
Yeah. Very confirming. Um, so yeah, but I don't know if there's anything that was like, super, that we, you know, mainly just stuff that like, you kind of forgot about, and it triggers a memory. But I don't know if there's anything that like, you know, was particularly different that that surprised us, but we haven't looked through everything yet. So there might still be.
Robert 32:42
Yeah, so you're still in the process of transferring?
Jordan 32:45
Yeah, yeah, a lot of and I mean, you know, for the video, VHS tape digitizing, you have to sit there, it's like you can't really, you know...
Robert 32:54
Gotta be, got to play in real time.
Jordan 32:55
Got to play in real time. So, you know, I think the one day that we did it, we kind of sat at the library for two or three hours. And you know, it does take time. And so I've got a lot of VHS tapes, I gotta come back and do still have a lot of like camcorder stuff that like the quality isn't great. And I can't tell if it's like the camcorder, the tape, or like the connection to the computer that's wrong. So...
Robert 33:21
Well, I actually wanted to mention this before, but with those Hi8 tapes, not for the eight millimeter film reels, obviously. But for the Hi8 tapes. If you have that camcorder, you could actually bring it in here to the lab and run it through our VCR. With RCA that you know the red wire.
Jordan 33:47
Oh, yeah.
Robert 33:49
We have a way to accommodate that.
Jordan 33:53
Okay, interesting.
Robert 33:53
We don't actually have the deck to play the tapes, but it's a work around. If... And the quality is usually pretty good.
Jordan 34:03
Oh, interesting. Yeah. And I was gonna say, I mean, like, I'm still working through it. But like, I mean, after I get done digitizing all this stuff, I'll have no need for a camcorder. No need for it. I think it's called the Wolverine.
Robert 34:15
Yeah, the eight millimeter millimeters.
Jordan 34:17
Um, but like, if you guys want that stuff, like, you're more than welcome to it, because what else am I going to digitize with it? You know, like, I'm, I have done all of my family stuff. So if that's a resource for other folks, like happy to donate that stuff, yeah. It's, I think the Wolverines like 200 or 300 bucks and like, you know, it was worth it. But not everybody's gonna be able to do that, you know, so yeah, like that. And yeah, gosh, I research this and researched, you know, is it cheaper to send it off somewhere is that cheaper to yourself and like, the services are really, really expensive. So I mean, like more resources that the library can have for free and people can come in like that. Yeah, like, happy to make that available. So, yeah.
Robert 35:05
Usually, for the those formats that we can't accommodate like the eight millimeter film reel. It is pretty cost-prohibitive for a lot of people. But the the quality of the product is usually pretty good.
Jordan 35:28
Yeah.
Robert 35:29
I mean, it depends on the transfer house that you send it to. But...
Jordan 35:34
Yeah, and you know, I think that's one thing that I'm not sure. And it's okay, quality. It's probably like, I don't know, 480 or something like that. But I imagine with film, like I've seen, like, for instance, like the when the I think it was 50th anniversary of the moonwalk, CNN or somebody digitized the original tapes and put it in 4k or 8k or something in stunning images from you know, the 60s or 70s I can't remember. Gosh, I should know when the moonwalk is late 60s, late 60s. Yeah, '68, '69. But so I'm wondering, yeah, that's something that I haven't quite researched is, you know, the, the transfer that I have is very, like, poor like, low quality. But I wonder what you could get out of film? Because it is film. You know, it's...
Robert 36:21
Yeah.
Jordan 36:23
But yeah, it's...
Robert 36:23
I mean, who knows what they used? To make it look like that. Yeah, usually, you're kind of if you're digitizing something, you're sort of stuck with the quality of how it was originally recorded.
Jordan 36:38
Right. Right.
Robert 36:40
So...
Jordan 36:41
Yeah, and you know, it's, it's good enough that you can see what's going on. And you know, there's some dust occasionally. And you know, there's a few things but like, it doesn't have to be, you know, movie quality for me to enjoy.
Robert 36:54
It's not going to be.
Jordan 36:56
Yeah, yeah.
Robert 36:57
That's that's part of it. For me at least that's part of the charm.
Jordan 37:00
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean...
Robert 37:02
Seeing the old-ness of it.
Jordan 37:06
Yeah. And even. Yeah, the 80s and 90s stuff. I mean, you kind of get that, that VHS quality of jump, or like, you know,
Robert 37:16
It's very distinctive.
Jordan 37:17
Yeah, it very much puts you in that era. Yeah, in a way that like, I feel like Instagram filters from, like, 10 years ago feel like kind of dated already, like...
Robert 37:26
Right.
Jordan 37:27
It very much is of an era. Yeah.
Robert 37:31
So you're, I want to go back to So you mentioned your journalists.
Jordan 37:38
Yeah.
Robert 37:38
And that a lot of the stuff that you've written, you can't find anymore.
Jordan 37:43
Yeah.
Robert 37:44
After going through this process of digitizing your family stuff? Have you taken any steps steps to, like, try to preserve the stuff that you are still writing?
Jordan 37:59
You know, I should. No, and I should, but I haven't. And, you know, it's kind of hard with news, it's a little bit harder to know, like, what will be important 10 years from now, or, you know...
Robert 38:13
Because you can't necessarily save everything, even with your personal stuff.
Jordan 38:18
Exactly. And, you know, it's, it's an interesting process. And it's always, you know, something that gets referenced later, or I think of something randomly, and I want to go back and look at that article from, say, 10 years ago. And, you know, it's not there, or, you know, sometimes, like, the plugins that we use, like, a lot JavaScript or not JavaScript, Flashplayer stuff that isn't around anymore, that, you know, things that we built in very, like specific formats, right? Remember, like, the early days of Twitter there was like, I can't remember the [unintelligible]. It was like, frog picker, or twit pic, or something I can't remember, but like a very specific photo service, that you would embed the photos and tweets. And those aren't around anymore, either. Because that's sort of shut down. So it's like, you know, it's it's kind of wild how's, not very old. Some of that stuff is and it's already gone. But yeah, it's uh, you know, I haven't I'm sure I'm gonna wish I had back that up, you know, like when I apply for the next job or you know, whatever it is or reference something. But yeah, it's, it's I mean, curation and like preservation is a lot of work, but it gets...
Robert 39:32
Absolutely.
Jordan 39:33
Yeah, it takes time.
Robert 39:34
Well, you know, I mean, this is maybe not, it might not be totally up to your specifications or like, a good long long term solution but the Internet Archive Wayback Machine...
Jordan 39:52
Yeah.
Robert 39:52
You know, if you need to save save a web page with your that, like a web published article. At least.
Jordan 40:00
Right. Yeah, it saved me a few times. Yeah. Lucky to have ahead at least.
Robert 40:05
[Laughter] Yeah. So you mentioned that you've been kind of sharing out some of this stuff. Is there anybody else in your family that, you know, like in your extended family or whatever, that is interested in helping out with this preservation work?
Jordan 40:25
You know, it's interesting, because, um, not really. And I, I like tech stuff. I like video. I like audio. I like work, you can get this stuff like, it's enjoyable to me, like I love, you know, kind of uncovering what is not easily viewable. Yeah, you know, with these different formats...
Robert 40:46
I can relate to that.
Jordan 40:47
Yeah. And, you know, it's like, lost, what do they call it lost footage or whatever, where it's just like, you know, I think there's like a great series of like, people find footage, like, old Goodwill's of like old VHS tapes and stuff. And that's a whole like genre of thing. I mean, I'm more like our, you know, personal family history stuff. But yeah, no one else has been really super into digitizing that sort of thing. My parents are divorced. And so some people have some stuff, some have others. And so my dad dug out a few more of the like, kind of camcorder-y tapes, but I was I was most of the stuff is probably my mom's side, mom's family. But I like my dad remembers his dad, using film eight millimeter stuff. And you know, he's got five siblings, or five kids in their family total. And none of them have, can find it. Which really sucks. Because I would love to see, you know, my grandma and grandpa on that side. And those, you know, all my aunts and uncles. But yeah, I've made a few people kind of dig through basements and attics. And because all of them remember them, the film, and they remember watching the film, but you know, I don't know.
Robert 42:05
I mean, if you can't find it, you can find it...
Jordan 42:08
Lost to the ages.
Robert 42:09
Yeah. Well, this has been a really cool discussion.
Jordan 42:14
Yeah, thank you.
Robert 42:15
And it's, it's always nice to speak with someone who's interested in, has a passion for, you know, record-keeping.
Jordan 42:26
Yeah.
Robert 42:26
You know, saving things that, making sure that they won't be lost to the ages.
Jordan 42:35
And especially, I mean, you know, I know, there's a lot of people that move to DC like me, but there's also people that grew up here and lived here. And, you know, preserve that history too, because that's so rich and important to, you know, just our region. And, you know, I mean, the tons of historical events, and even just, you know, there's, you know, the riots and stuff in the, you know, after Martin Luther King was killed, and, you know, there's a ton of specific, you know, Nixon and all, you know, there's a lot of history in DC, but I think some of the most important interesting things are family life, or, you know, just different, what different types of families were doing in you know, different neighborhoods and all that stuff, like, that aspect of history, I think it's just as important if not, you know, more important than, than kind of the, like, newspaper history thing. So, I mean, I like, I hope, if people stumble across this stuff, they take advantage, because I mean, it's free, it's here, you know, and preserve it.
Robert 43:42
Yeah, it's, it's nice that, especially with being able to digitize a lot of this stuff, that we're hopefully making, history or documentation a little bit more democratized, in a way, Like, families might have personal footage of, like you said, a historical event, or something that people think is interesting at the time and then ends up becoming critically important to studying that period of history later on.
Jordan 44:20
Yeah.
Robert 44:22
Yeah. It's putting, putting history-keeping more in the hands of regular people.
Jordan 44:31
Yeah.
Robert 44:31
Hopefully.
Jordan 44:32
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I mean, it's, um, you know, every lens is, you know, seeing a different angle, every family is experiencing, you know, history in life a little bit differently. And so, you know, with many of those views you can get, the better. So...
Robert 44:49
Well, usually, how I like to conclude these kinds of discussions is by asking you, if you remember what your earliest memory is.
Jordan 45:00
Oh my gosh....
Robert 45:01
And if you care to share?
Jordan 45:04
Yeah. Um...
Robert 45:06
Because some people don't. And that's okay.
Jordan 45:08
Yeah, no, I can't. You know, my memory is is interesting because so much of it is filled in by like photos and that sort of thing. And so...
Robert 45:17
It really that technology affects how people remember now.
Jordan 45:22
Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
Robert 45:24
And it kind of makes me wonder. I just want to know what it felt like to remember things before photography, before all of this other stuff. Yeah, you actually had to remember things.
Jordan 45:40
Yeah. [Laughter] And, you know, I don't know if it's just how much information that we absorb, like in the, you know, day to day modern world but I mean, I can't remember what that guy did two weeks ago. You know, I can like to fill in a timesheet later. It's like, did I work that day? Was I working a set? Like, I mean, I can't remember that. You know, so to remember, like, earliest memory. So yeah, like I say, like, photos are, like a super big crutch for me. But yeah, like in terms of like, just remembering, like, earliest memory. I don't know if I can answer that. Like the one like, the thing that I remember. At least from from seeing photos, but also just remembering like, what it felt like and stuff when we were kids. We had a lot of big trees in our yard. And, you know, my dad would rake them up during during the fall. And I don't know, we're probably like, two or three. But I mean, just giant leaf piles, like, you know, jumping in that there's like photos of us, like, in like leaf trash cans of just like, you know, leaves up to our heads and stuff like that. But that's the earliest one that I can remember from like, you know, just photos, but I wish I could remember what like the earliest one is. I was, I was born at home. And so like, I came a couple weeks early, my mom just thought she was kind of ill. And so the first video that we have of us is like, the next day in the hospital. I like my mom always said that, like I wasn't a very cute baby. And in the video, she's like, Yeah, he's a little jaundiced. He's a little like, yellow, a little bit like an alien. And like I do, so...[laughter] I mean, that's like, like, I was not a cute baby coming out of the womb. So that's like that, that was the most interesting thing to see was like that first day of like, how much love there was, but like, also, like, the love, what I looked like, would have been a lot back in the day. So yeah, there's great video of my own being like, Oh, we love him. But like, he's a little ugly to start, [laughter] you know, [laughter] got cuter. But yeah, so that was really funny to see. But I wouldn't be the earliest thing that you know, I've seen that I remember.
Robert 47:58
That's funny.
Jordan 47:58
Yeah.
Robert 47:59
That's pretty good. Is there... Is there a particular memory from... Well, I guess, anytime, but maybe in your childhood that you feel like was sort of, I guess a turning point for you or like, really formative?
Jordan 48:24
You know, it's interesting, because I mean, memory, like, also the things like, I mean, going through these things that you video and take photos of, they're often the happiest, or the best moments, or the most fun moments, or events, or vacations or birthday parties. It's like, those are like the really good things like you don't take video of like, the bad things. Like...
Robert 48:47
Yeah, you're not gonna whip out the video camera during a fight.
Jordan 48:51
Exactly. So yeah, it's so interesting that the stuff that you see is so selective based on that, you know, so like, I mean, and so some of the things that like, you know, my parents got divorced, I think it was 10, 5th grade, something like that. And like, I can remember, like, when my parents told me that, you know, like, we're standing, you know, around the kitchen island, that kind of stuff and like, I remember that, but and, you know, turning formative big change in life, that sort of thing. So that was definitely like one that like, boom, yes can totally recall that without videos or photos or you know...
Robert 49:29
It's completely effortless.
Jordan 49:30
Yeah, and you know, there's it's so interesting that there's very I don't know like there's there's our milestones in life but like, I don't know, I'm trying to think like how many like things I can like randomly recall off that made two dozen like, you know, kind of major events. You know, choosing which college you want to go to or like you know, your first like real breakup your you know, You know, getting your first shot. I mean, like, there's things like that that aren't documented. But like you remember those things were like moving moving cross country, like that was like really formative. And there's some photos and stuff like that. But like, you know, I can't remember what that felt like and what that was like. But yeah, it's it's really interesting. I mean, like, you probably get, I don't know, 25% of the truth, I guess with videos. It's like, yes, this is good. But it's only like, the best, you know, there's, there's the mundane life. And then there's like, the not so great days. So yeah, it's really it's really interesting to see, like, what's documented and why.
Robert 50:38
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's, that is really interesting. Because every once in a while you do come across, not so great stuff that get's preserved. Like, I remember one of those audio tapes, the reel, open-reel audio tapes that my grandparents recorded when my father and his siblings were little. I don't remember exactly what I mean, most of them were like, you know, some just family singing around the piano or playing piano just, there's one of my grandfather reading a Dr. Seuss book, to my dad and his siblings. Which is really special.
Jordan 51:30
Yeah.
Robert 51:31
But there's one where I think, one, either my father or one of my aunts or uncles are kind of, you know, misbehaving.
Jordan 51:42
Yeah.
Robert 51:42
Of course, you can see what they're doing, because it's audio but... I could hear my grandfather, like yelling at them to stop. And it's like, this huge blast of distorted sound. And it's like, oh, you know...
What are you in for, you know...?
Sometimes, sometimes, and then the microphone shuts off. [Laughter] So, you know...
Jordan 52:09
But that's part of it, you know, that's part of life. You know, not not so much like that. But I mean, even just seeing, like, you know, my mom and dad interacting as like a married couple, like, you know, which was only, you know, a third of my life, I don't remember a whole lot of like, what they interacted, like, that was really interesting and kind of odd to see. And, you know, the, the perspective of videos too of, who is taking videos and that sort of stuff. It's always my dad, it's always my dad, that's taking the videos. And so it's, you know, there's a lot of like, a recurring theme in these camcorder videos or like, you know, my mom, like, you know, not being ready for the day yet. Or, you know, like, She's like, you know, I haven't like, showered, I've been put on makeup like that, you know, get that out of here. Like, so it's, you know, it's interesting to see like, that kind of stuff. And yeah, like, who wants to be in these, who doesn't and all that kind of stuff. So
Robert 53:03
Well that's why in my family, we have so few pictures of my mother, because she was always the one taking pictures.
Jordan 53:12
Oh, interesting. Yeah, same with me, like I am. Yeah, I'll always take the photos or videos and like, there's, there's, you know, photos, but like, Oh, my God, if there's one photo of my girlfriend, or one photo of like, the family or whatever, it's like, there's a million of them. And then, you know, a few but I yeah, I mean, I like photography. And I like, you know, that kind of stuff. But that's, that's so interesting. Like, yeah, I mean, somebody's got to hold the camera, usually, so [laughter]...
Robert 53:39
Weren't really taking selfies then. So...
Jordan 53:42
Not back then, no...
Robert 53:43
Yeah. Whoever's recording, or taping or snapping the picture...
Jordan 53:50
Yeah.
Robert 53:51
...is not gonna be in here.
Jordan 53:52
Yeah. And, you know, my mom is not she never wants to be in photos even nowadays. And...
Robert 53:58
Same with my mother, that's why she always wanted to be the one actually taking people's...
Jordan 54:02
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, like I, like, you know, have gained a lot of weight over the last like, 10 years. I don't, you know, really like, like, Oh, yeah, that's a good look, you look good in that photo, or, like, you know, like, so I kind of get that a little bit. But like, it's, but I always hound her I'm, like, you know, like, we're not, we're not gonna we're gonna have like, 20 year gaps of like, not knowing, you know, what you looked like, or, you know, what events we did together and that kind of stuff. And so we've, we've kind of made it a point, like, whenever I'm home, like, I try to get home, like twice a year. And those are the milestones if we're, you know, painting the house or if we're going to dinner or if we're doing holidays. Like, we're going to take photos, like it's just gonna happen. So, but yeah, it's always fascinating, like a lot of people are really camera shy.
Robert 54:49
Absolutely. And that's okay.
Jordan 54:51
Yep.
Robert 54:52
They can be they can be the ones who do the preserving.
Jordan 54:55
Exactly. [laughter] Exactly.
Robert 54:58
Well, thank you so much, for this conversation.
Jordan 55:02
Yeah. Thanks for having me. And thanks for having the Memory Lab. It's a great resource. I hope people know about it. Take advantage of it. Use it.
Robert 55:10
Yeah, we want people to use it as much as as much as they need to.
Jordan 55:14
Yeah. Well, thank you for having it. [Laughter]
Robert 55:22
You have just listened to an episode of Memories on Tap on DC Public Library Podcast, recorded from the Labs recording studio in the historic modernized Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown Washington DC. To see all the events we are currently offering at the Labs, visit bit.ly/labsclasses. To receive email updates about the Labs. Go to bit.ly/labs-email. To learn about additional programs being offered by DCPL, visit dclibrary.org/calendar. Thank you for listening, and be sure to join us next time.
Voiceover 56:35
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