“It’s hard to be brave,” said Piglet, “when you’re only a Very Small Animal.”
“It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in the adventure before us,” said Rabbit.
Piglet was so excited at the idea of being Useful that he forgot to be frightened.” — A.A. Milne

You want to know what uncomfortable looks like? Try standing next to a machine about to slice apart the Baca County History Book your mother gave you 40 years ago — the same book that’s now fetching $500 on eBay. But that’s exactly what I did to kick off the process of digitizing the book for our upcoming reprint and Volume II project.

Like Piglet, I had to set the fear aside — because sometimes being Useful means stepping outside your comfort zone.

Here’s how the day unfolded:

Steve Doner and I had been thinking “old school” about how to handle this. Steve, being a Walsh, Colorado graduate, even floated the idea of cutting the pages out by hand — one at a time. That sounded fine for the first three pages… but let’s be honest, my patience and his would’ve been long gone after that.

Thankfully, Teresa Silcox suggested we check with Staples or a local print shop to help. Today, I was going to to price what that would look like. That’s when I remembered a resource just 20 steps down the hall from my office — the college’s professional copy center. Yes, I will pay for the work, which is how it should be.

More importantly, they had the right tools — and the right people.
I explained our goal, and their response was immediate:
“Why would you do this the hard way? Let’s use Adobe OCR, process it properly, and save you a bunch of time.”

Turns out, having someone with more patience and experience on your side makes all the difference.

As the video shows, the machine that separated all 749 pages from the binding did the job in less than a second. The whole process — from carefully cutting the book to fully digitizing it with OCR — took about four hours. By 4:00 that afternoon, we had the entire Baca County History Book digitized and ready for the next phase.

It’s easy to get so focused on doing things the way we always have, maybe the hard way that we overlook the tools, technology, and talented people right around us. Slowing down to ask questions and lean on experience changed everything.

Here is the digitization when it was approximately 95% complete

With automation, expertise, and a little bravery, we’re preserving Baca County’s history faster and more accurately than ever. We’ll share much more on this process here at plainsmanherald.com, including how you can contribute to the new edition.

So remember Piglet’s lesson — it’s okay to feel small (or nervous), but being Useful makes all the difference.

Stay tuned. And stay brave, Baca County.

Our mission is to share American history through the words and stories of those who experienced it. Books from Lonesome Prairie Publications step beyond the facts and figures of a common history book, telling the stories of those settling the American west through the newspapers of the past, letters from real people, and stories about actual events. Check out the newest title “Guthrie to Gotham” from Lonesome Prairie Publications.