Tucked away in the very corner on the top floor of the American Philatelic Research Library is a small team scanning, photographing, and cataloging philatelic materials for the Robert A. Mason Digital Library. This is digitizing!
Digitization is the process of putting physical artifacts in a digital format. We digitize journals, articles, images, stamps, and exhibits. Additionally, we are working to digitize more philatelic artifacts like awards, postal service materials, tools, and more! Our team celebrates the ability to make materials more accessible while also preserving the rich history of philately.
Geoff began working at the American Philatelic Center in 2022 as a Digital Assistant and is now the Digital Librarian. He has a background in art, design, printing, and publishing. He enjoys how stamps are a combination of trading cards, stickers, tiny paintings, and so much more!
Betsy is a Digital Projects Assistant who began at the American Philatelic Center in 2004. She has a background as a librarian. She appreciates philately for how curious philatelists are, and how the hobby celebrates that curiosity. She says librarians always like curious people!
Sarah is a Digital Projects Assistant, with a background in design and photography, who joined the team in April of this year. She most enjoys finding fun ways to photograph stamps which honor their details and uniqueness. She is looking forward to building a collection of her own!
We hope sharing more about what we do will help readers understand the value and excitement of our digitization efforts. Since the beginning of the project, we have digitized and uploaded 56 journals, comprised of 8,953 individual issues with a combined 356,123 individual pages. Additionally, we have digitized and uploaded 45 exhibits containing 3,445 individual exhibit pages. Last month, the digital library received 2,922 pageviews. The materials are available in the Robert A. Mason Digital Library, which is accessible from our website.
Want to see more images from Sarah and the RAMDL? Click here to check out our Flickr!