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OREM, Utah (AP) -- The Orem Historic Preservation Commission wants to take a peak inside the family albums of local families.
The commission and the city library want to tap family photos for the Mountain West Digital Library Project, an electronic repository of pictures and other priceless documents. Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University are also involved with the project.
City Library Director Louise Wallace says the project already has drawn from three collections of historical photos.
"Everybody has pictures at home relative to Orem history," Wallace said. "But photos, over time, get lost."
The goal of the project is to preserve Orem's history through photographs so future generations can enjoy and learn from them.
Photographs often provide more information than found in written accounts or official records, Utah historian D. Robert Carter said.
"You can talk about a building or place, but it is hard to etch an image of it in the (mind's) eye without a photograph," Carter said. "There are so many facets of a community that people don't understand."
Photographs donated to the project will be scanned at 600 pixels to the inch, twice the resolution of typical digital scans. The resolution allows the fine details in a photograph to be preserved and allows for making high-quality, poster-size prints for displays.
Wallace said any donated pictures will be returned to their owners.
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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
