By Quinn O’Hara

The Chapman Center for Rural Studies digitization lab is set to travel to Americus, just outside of Emporia, to help locals in their community digitize and store their family memories and history, at no cost to the participants.

The Director of the Chapman Center for Rural Studies, Mary Kohn, says the project is meant to increase accessibility to digitization technologies:

Kohn says a lot of times, the team doesn’t know anything of the needs of a community before they get there.

She also says that CCRS has had several digitization events and partnerships with Kansas historical societies and organizations. Kohn mentioned CCRS is currently aiding the Orphan Train Museum in Concordia in their own digitization project.

Kohn says that education programs like the one in Americus are vital for storing and preserving family histories:

Kohn says that families or organizations who would like to host their own digitization event can contact the Chapman Center for Rural Studies for more information. This service is available free of charge.