Suzanne- I would also recommend a good scanner to record snippets of paper work that can be saved to a cd-rom. I have recorded cemeteries here in Baker County and pu the photos on a cd rom-at the time I made them I had to do a separate recording for each tombstone and it became very time consuming, not to mention confusing at times to get the reading with the photos. A digital cam will erase that problem entirely:<) Ain't technology great!!! Just check with a few sample if you decide to use it for copying written pages that can't be touched-the camera's eye and what you see in the viewer may not be exactly the same if the lens is offset from the center of the camera. My new one is that way and it's a pain to try to allow for that discrepancy when shooting a kid's football game. BUT mine is NOT a camcorder, just a camera that can make videos too. I have not played with digital camcorders. So that may not be a problem. I wish you good fortune with this project. I have been gone from my beloved Orange County for 40 years and I miss it as much today as I did all those years ago. Peggie in Baker County OR -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.0/103 - Release Date: 9/15/2005