Preserving precious memories
Published on 20 October 2026
When McLaren Vale’s Aliya Piper joined family members to help clean her late 94-year-old great-great-aunt’s unit, they were delighted to find boxes of old family photos.
“Some of them date back to the late 1800s, and there were a bunch of old letters too,” Aliya says.
Realising some of the precious artefacts were in poor condition, Aliya decided she wanted to convert them to digital files before they were gone for good. Coincidentally, she spotted a social media post about Noarlunga Library’s new Media Conversion Station and figured she’d try it out.
“I went down a bit of a rabbit hole,’ she laughs, adding that she also decided to start digitising her elderly grandparent’s old photos. Since then, Aliya has booked regular free sessions at the station to scan the old photos, negatives, film slides and letters – not only to preserve them but to restore them where possible.
“Lots of them were very, very faded, but the software has repaired them enough that you can actually see what was in the original photo, which is fantastic,” she says. Equally rewarding have been the stories the process has unearthed for Aliya’s family, with her grandparents – both in their eighties – helping to ensure they’re passed on. Aliya mentions photos from when her grandfather came to Australia on a ship from England, a letter about a gas explosion in London that affected a family pub, another about how the family home fared during the London Blitz bombings in World War II.
“That’s one of the relatives who was in a performance troupe,” Aliya says, pointing to a black and- white photograph of a young woman bending over backwards. “I certainly didn’t inherit that! But a relative now has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which can make you super flexible with hyperextension, so maybe that’s where that came from?”
Aliya plans to book a free appointment with one of the local history officers for additional help identifying relatives in the letters and photos. Local History Library Officer, Lucy Thiele, says the Media Conversion Station has proven extremely popular.
“I was teaching one of the first customers how to digitise a VHS tape here on level 3, and as I was walking away on the next floor, I heard them laughing so hard at this footage of family members from 40 years ago,” Lucy recalls. “I immediately brought a box of tissues back because I thought, if people are laughing, people might cry too.”
Formats that can be converted include VHS tapes, camcorder tapes (VHS-C cassette only), photos, documents, various photo film formats, and slides. You can book your own self-guided session, or a training session with library staff for those who want more assistance using the station.
For more information, visit: onkaparingacity.com/Media-conversion-station