Congratulations to Nick Norman for Award Recognizing Digitization Work

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Jordan Mechner is an American video game designer, graphic novelist, and screenwriter. He created Prince of Persia, one of the world’s most beloved and enduring video game franchises, and became the first game creator to successfully adapt his own work as a feature film screenwriter with Disney’s Prince of Persia (2010). With game credits including Karateka, The Last Express, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, he is considered a pioneer of cinematic storytelling in the video game industry. Jordan made his debut as a graphic novel writer/artist with the autobiographical Replay: Memoir of an Uprooted Family (recipient of the 2023 Chateau de Cheverny prize). His graphic novels as writer include the New York Times best-selling Templar (with LeUyen Pham and Alex Puvilland), Monte Cristo (with Mario Alberti), and Liberty (with Etienne Le Roux).

Posted in News, Software Archive | Tagged vanishingculture |
Nick Norman
The Internet Archive’s Nick photo restoration service has won a 2024 Anthem Community Voice Award in the category for Best Use of Technology. The Anthem Awards honor mission-driven individuals, companies and organizations worldwide, inspiring global change.

Read Norman’s submission essay, “Scanning the Past to Empower the Future.” Learn more about the award.

Norman began volunteering with Internet Archive’s Open Library in 2019, where the Tennessee native took on a variety of responsibilities, including the communications lead in Open Library’s Fellowship program. Now he is a digital technician, assisting on a variety of digitization projects. He has scanned documents from the University of California Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies Library, the Graduate Theological Union and others.

Making vital documents available to the public is a privilege, he said, and provides important clues about the past that can inform future decisions.

“It’s like breadcrumbs,” Norman said of the knowledge he helps share with users. “Each piece we scan is a breadcrumb, a fragment of a story. People can pick them up, follow the trail, and discover something meaningful — and that’s what I want to do: help people pick them up and see where they lead.”

Norman, whose parents are both librarians, said he was drawn to the work because of his interest in learning and commitment to accessibility of knowledge for all.

“I think about all the materials out there that we get to touch through digitization,” Norman said. “The ability to make significant change or have a profound impact is right at our fingertips.”

Norman considers the documents he has digitized through the course of his work. Some of the materials were given out at meetings or in boardrooms and filed away for safekeeping in places out of reach. He says digitization cracks the knowledge in these materials open again and ushers in new potential.