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On the third floor of the University of Arizona’s Main Library sits a teeny room just big enough for five people.
It’s an unassuming room filled with computers and miscellaneous electronics, but the space often holds a whole lot of meaning for the people inside.
The area is home to the Wildcats Memory Lab, a space for community members to digitize their VHS and camcorder tapes, cassettes, documents, film, physical photos, vinyl records and CDs. It’s a space to preserve memories, family photos, home videos and stories begging to be saved.
The Memory Lab opened its doors in spring of 2025, thanks to Stacey Jones who secured funding through a grant from the Arizona State Library and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The lab is accessible to anyone — whether you’re affiliated with the UA or not — and it’s entirely free to use. There are other memory labs around the country, but this is likely the first of its kind inside a university library.
“It’s important to us that these things are free because we’re trying to increase community knowledge of digital preservation and the importance of (digitizing) while you can — before items degrade or get lost,” says Amy Ellsworth, who is the lab’s community outreach coordinator. “I think it’s our responsibility as a land grant university to offer these kinds of services for free. It’s a way to give back in ways that are meaningful to people.”
To visit the Wildcats Memory Lab, all you have to do is reserve a space, bring in your physical media (along with a flash drive or personal device like a laptop or tablet) and watch as it digitizes in front of you. You’ll take home your files the same day. (Keep in mind that you’ll be at the lab for however long your media is — if a VHS is an hour long, for example, you’ll be there for an hour.)
“There aren’t a lot of things like this. Technology has changed quicker than the average consumer can keep up with,” Amy says. “A lot of people have tried to be very good about digitizing — they switched their VHS tapes to DVDs, but now they’re having problems with their DVDs. There are other vendors who digitize, but it can be expensive or it can be especially risky in Arizona to ship tapes (to digitization companies) across the country because it’s really hot.”
While a staff member at the lab can help you digitize your files, there are also written instructions so you can do it entirely on your own.
“I hope people feel confident when they leave. A lot of older folks come through and so many come here feeling like they could never do this on their own and then they leave here being the family archivist — not just having the files, but knowing how to share that knowledge with their family,” Amy says. “It’s kind of unique to have an archiving space for the public. It’s fun to see people find so much joy in something we do. And there’s so much emotional work in a lot of ways — (uncovering these memories) is a big thing to take on in a lot of ways. I hope — and I do think — that people take a lot of pride in being able to do this themselves.”
The goal wasn’t necessarily for the Memory Lab to become a third space for people to make connections with one another — but that’s what’s happened along the way as strangers get to know strangers while sitting in a tiny room, sometimes for hours.
“We hope to become a staple for not just this campus, but for the community,” Amy says. “This is a way for the library to offer a service that brings in the broader community. Some people have driven an hour just to get here.”
Thanks to a recent grant, the lab will soon offer mobile services — bringing digitization tools to communities who aren’t able to visit the UA campus. Staff envision pop-up days in the community, partnering with museums to help with archival work and loaning the equipment to institutions like public libraries.
“We have found over the course of almost a year and a half how small this space is for the demand,” Amy says. “We have sometimes a dozen people in here each day, sometimes more, but it’s very small. We have a lot of community groups who want us to come to them. I’ve bounced around and done presentations about this, but it’s hard to actually do it without the equipment with me.”
Since opening, 745 people have brought something to be digitized. I was 746.
For at least a decade, a box of old VHS tapes has been collecting dust in my closet. I brought my favorite one — of my preschool graduation in 2001 — to the Memory Lab.
I watched as the screen flicked on and static filled the speakers. “May 15, 2001” appeared in the bottom right corner. “You’re A Grand Old Flag” started to play as two dozen 5-year-olds walked across the stage. There I was, standing right in the front, wearing a floral dress with goofy shoulder pads and ruffle socks.
“Most people come in with home videos and family photos. It’s a lot of camcorder tapes. People are often seeing things they haven’t seen in many decades — or maybe ever,” Amy says. “We see so many cute stories. Every day is a cute story.”
📼 The Wildcats Memory Lab is located on the third floor of the Main Library on the University of Arizona campus, 1510 E. University Blvd. For more information and to reserve a space at the lab, click here. 🎞️
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