Malad Stake FamilySearch Digitizing Center: Where Your Family’s Past Meets the Future

At the heart of preserving family heritage lies the FamilySearch Digitizing Center, a place brimming with state-of-the-art technology dedicated to safeguarding your memories. Here, visitors find a comprehensive suite of resources designed to convert a wide range of analog media and documents into accessible digital formats. Whether you are bringing in decades-old tapes, precious photo albums, handwritten journals, or oversized certificates, the center delivers both the expertise and the equipment needed to ensure your history is never lost and all at no cost to the patron.

Audio Preservation: Cassette Tape Conversion

For those with collections of cassette tapes—be it oral histories, music, interviews, or family gatherings—the center offers high-quality cassette-to-mp3 conversion. Specialized playback equipment ensures optimal sound clarity, while staff assist in editing and organizing your digital audio files. Once digitized, these recordings can be easily shared and
archived.

Video and Film: Multiple Formats Digitized

VHS and Camcorder Tapes: Bring your VHS and other home video tapes to be converted to mp4, the universal digital video format.

8mm & Super 8mm Film Reels: Using a professional machine, your film reels are digitized frame by frame, preserving color and clarity while eliminating flicker. The resulting mp4 files are ready for viewing and sharing.

CD/DVD Conversion: Audio CDs and video DVDs are transferred to mp4, ensuring compatibility with modern devices. These should be personal and not commercial CDs/DVDs with copyrights.

Document Digitization: Large Format and Book Scanners

Large Format Scanners: Perfect for newspapers, maps, genealogy charts, and oversized documents, these high-resolution scanners capture every detail, including color and texture, and produce crisp, searchable PDF or image files.

Book Scanner: Designed to manage bound materials gently, the book scanner allows you to digitize each page without damaging delicate bindings or covers. Software helps you straighten images and remove shadows, making old books or scrapbooks easily accessible and printable.

Photo, Slide, and
Negative Digitization

Fast Photo Scanners: Capable of processing hundreds of prints per hour, these scanners are ideal for large batches of photos. Each image is saved at high resolution, and optional color correction restores faded originals.

Slide Scanner: Convert 35mm slides into digital files with exceptional clarity, preserving vibrant colors and details from
decades past.

Negative Light Board: For strips of negatives, staff guide you through a process that transforms them into digital positives, revealing hidden gems from your collection.

Flatbed Scanner: Versatile and gentle, flatbed scanners accommodate fragile photos, documents, artwork, and odd-sized items, producing clear, high-quality digital images.

Expert Guidance and Digital Organization

The center is staffed by friendly, knowledgeable professionals ready to guide you through each step. They’ll help select the right equipment, troubleshoot issues, and advise on organizing your files. Digital outputs can be stored on USB drives, uploaded to cloud storage, or integrated directly into your FamilySearch account for easy access and sharing worldwide.

Why Digitize?

Digitizing protects your history from physical decay, loss, and technological obsolescence. It allows you to share stories, images, and voices with future generations anywhere in the world. At the FamilySearch Digitizing Center, you’ll find a welcoming environment and all the tools needed to transform your family’s legacy into a digital archive, ensuring that your memories remain vivid, accessible, and secure.

Computers

The Center also has three computers in the digitizing room and nine computers in the FamilySearch room where you can use free software to search your family tree and upload your
memories.

Histories and
Obituaries

The Center offers an extensive collection of obituaries and local histories to browse. Many of these records, along with Malad High School yearbooks, are also available online at https://maladvalleyfamilyhistory.org/

Everyone is Welcome ~ No Charge

All these services are free to anyone. The FamilySearch Center is open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 1 pm to 8 pm every week. You can call for an appointment (208) 766-2332 or just bring your memories and come.