Listening

A video by the Rauch Brothers who have animated the story of 86-year-old World War II veteran Joseph Robertson who fought at the Battle of the Bulge. Over 60 years later, he still can't forget one soldier he killed there.



Germans in the Woods from Rauch Brothers on Vimeo.


This story was captured as part of the Story Corps project.  Story Corps is an organisation working in the United States that aims "to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening."  It is one of the largest oral history project with over 50,000 people sharing their stories since 2003. 


I've been thinking about making use of some elements of the various oral history techniques in my work to capture at least some of the knowledge our staff and volunteers have about collections and the shipbuilding and engineering industries in Scotland.  As a result I've been reading a lot about oral history projects and techniques.


The Story Corps approach appealed to me and I thought I would include it here as I think it has several web 2.0 elements to it.  They encourage collaboration with others (for more information about the collaboration between Rauch Brothers and Story Corps see here), their make hundreds of the recordings available on their website to listen to and also have podcasts. 

The Interactive Archivist

Another great resource I've recently discovered is the Interactive Archivist webpages created by the Society of American Archivists.  This site has general information about Web 2.0 and how archivists can use it, as well as descriptions about the different technologies and a bibliography for further reading.

The best thing about this site is the case studies.  At the moment there are 10 case studies covering all the different types of web 2.0 tools and technologies.  I find it very inspirational to read in detail how other organisations are using web 2.0 technologies and its great to get some information on how useful the experiments have been for that organisation.

What I particularly like about this resource is that the Society of American Archivists recognised that there was a gap in the existing literature and did something to help plug this gap.