DPL Genealogy - Legacy Lab

Preserve your family history by converting your photos, home videos, and paper documents to digital formats. The Legacy Lab at Emily Fowler Central Library is a self-service digital archiving and conversion lab that provides you with the tools and the training to digitize your family’s memories.

You can scan, access, or convert:

Documents up to 11”x17”
VHS Tapes and other camcorder cassette tapes
Photo prints, negatives, and 35 mm slides
8mm or Super 8 film
Audio Cassettes and LPs
3.5" floppy disks and other digital storage

Make a Reservation

What You Need To Know

The equipment is available on a first come, first served basis. We strongly recommend making a reservation beforehand to guarantee equipment availability. You may submit a reservation online by clicking here or call (940) 349-8752 to make an appointment.
The Legacy Lab is self-serve. The first time you use the equipment library staff will provide an overview of use and how to access the training materials. After that, you will convert all of your own materials.
Information and instructions for the equipment can be found on the "Equipment" page.
Customers must have a valid Denton Public Library card or technology card and complete a Legacy Lab Borrower Responsibility Agreement at the time of use.
Your initial session time to use the equipment will be three hours. Your session can be renewed if no one is waiting to use the equipment. Customers must be at least 10 years old to use the equipment.
The Legacy Lab is to be used for the purpose of digitizing personal/family collections and materials of a civic, cultural, or educational nature. Copyright law prohibits copying commercial works.
When transferring from analog, such as VHS or audio cassette to digital formats, media will be captured in real time. Be prepared to stay with your material to monitor the conversion.
Check out the "Getting Ready" page for tips on preparing your items for scanning.
*** Please bring your own portable media storage such as a USB drive, SD card, external hard drive, or writable (W or RW) CDs or DVDs. ***

Legacy Lab Equipment Instructions

*** Please bring your own portable media storage such as a USB drive, memory card, external hard drive, or writable (W or RW) CDs or DVDs. ***

Epson Expression 10000XL Scanner

This flatbed scanner features an 11”x17” inch scanning area and also has photograph and negative scanning capabilities.

Epson FastFoto FF-640 Scanner

This scanner uses a feeder as part of the scanning process. It will not accept Polaroid, self-processed, sticky or torn and wrinkled photographs. The photographs must be smaller than 8x10 inches and no thicker than 0.011 inch.

TEAC LP/Cassette to CD Recorder

This device will convert records, cassettes, and CD’s to digital files (flash drive needed) or to CD-R for Audio and CD-RW for Audio discs. Conversion of this media happens in real time. Be prepared to stay with your material to monitor the process.

Toshiba DVR 620 VHS to DVD Converter

This machine will convert a VHS tape to a DVD-RW disk. Adapters are available for the small camcorder cassettes. Conversion of this media happens in real time. Be prepared to stay with your material to monitor the process.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Wolverine MovieMaker Pro for Super 8/8mm film

This scanner will convert Super 8 or 8 mm film to MP4 files. It will save to a SD/SDHC memory card up to 32 GB. Film reels need to be 9 inches in diameter or smaller. Conversion of this media happens in real time. Be prepared to stay with your material to monitor the process.

Wolverine F2D Titan Film-To-Digital Converter

This scanner will save 35mm (photo film & Archive), 127, 126, 110, APS Slides & Negatives, 8mm and Super 8 frames as JPEGs. It will save to SD/SDHC memory card up to 32 GB or a device that will connect through the USB port. Conversion of this media happens in real time. Be prepared to stay with your material to monitor the process.

ClearClick HD Video Capture Box Ultimate

This device can record audio and video from HDMI video sources (up to 1080P and 60 FPS) and records from SD video sources such as VCR's, camcorders, DVD players, and so on. No computer is required - the device saves videos in MP4 format onto any USB drive (up to 4 TB) or SD card (up to 128 GB). Conversion of this media happens in real time. Be prepared to stay with your material to monitor the process. Please Note: This device will automatically split longer recordings into MP4 video files that are 4 GB each. If you wish to combine a longer recording into one file, this must be done on a computer after recording. Segments cannot currently be combined on the device.

Other Equipment and Software Available

DVD/CD Drive
Zip Drive
3.5" Diskette Drive
Memory Card Reader
Smart Card Reader
Headphones
Light Box & Slide Viewer
Adobe Acrobat DC
Ashampoo (CD/DVD burning and conversion)
Audacity (audio editor and recorder)
Cyberlink Power Director (video editing)
EZ Grabber (video editing)
GIMP 2 (graphics editor)
Handbrake (video converter)
Adobe Creative Cloud (graphic design, video editing, web development)
Adobe Lightroom (photo editor and organizer)
Adobe Photoshop (graphics editor)
MS Office Products

Getting Ready

To make the most of your time in the library it is best to do a little ground work at home. Here are a few websites that will provide more information about personal archiving, how to get ready, and how to organize your files.

The Legacy Lab is self-service and not all of the equipment is “professional” grade. If you have reservations about doing it yourself there are companies in Denton that offer conversion services:

The Panhandle House