Photocopying Materials in the Archives

At the Mountaineers Program Center, both the Archives Storage Room and the Reading Room are upstairs (see map). A copy machine is located on the ground floor in the committee mail room near the bookstore.

Many materials in the archives are in fragile bound volumes. Using an office copy machine can damage these materials, because it requires pressing the original on the copier's glass platen, which stresses the binding and pages.

We recommend hand copying using one of the many document scanning applications available for smart phones. Visitors to the Mountaineers Archives have been successful using JotNot Pro and Doc Scan for the iPhone. These applications use the built-in camera on your smart phone to photograph pages and convert them to PDF documents. Many other similar applications are available.

The Archives Storage Room has a small wheeled book cart equipped with bolsters for use as a copy stand. The book cart is normally stored near bookcase S5 (see map). You can roll the cart into the main aisle where the lighting is good.

The copy stand supports a book opened at an angle around 90 degrees. In this position, stress on the binding and pages is minimized, the document is well lit, and you can make a clear photocopy, as shown in the photo at right.

 

 


Hand-copying in the Archives Storage Room using a smart phone with document copying software.