More than 45 people gathered at the Keene Valley Library in the heart of the High Peaks of the Adirondacks on Saturday, September 14, to celebrate the growing online collection of audio stories available through Adirondack Community: Capturing, Retaining, and Communicating the Stories of Who We Are. [Read more…] about Adirondack Oral History Project Celebrated
Oral History
Digital Project Seeks Stories About Keene, NY
The Keene Valley Library Association has announced it has received three grants to implement “Adirondack Community: Capturing, Retaining, and Communicating the Stories of Who We Are.”
This multi-year local history project collects and organizes audio stories and related photographs from Town of Keene community members through an online platform to share the social and cultural history of the community. [Read more…] about Digital Project Seeks Stories About Keene, NY
Franco American Music and Stories Sought
Buffalo based musician and teaching artist Dave Ruch is seeking information on Franco American musicians and singers, past and present, from the Northern New York area.
Ruch is researching French American musical traditions for an upcoming project with Traditional Arts in Upstate New York (TAUNY). Past collaborations between Ruch and TAUNY have included the “W is for the Woods” website on traditional Adirondack music, and the Emmy-winning “Songs to Keep” project. [Read more…] about Franco American Music and Stories Sought
My First Year As A Local History Librarian
In mid-October, I marked my first anniversary as the “local history librarian” at the White Plains Public Library. Four years earlier, I was a library clerk at an urban public library trying to figure out how to make a job out of my seemingly varied interests. I liked direct service, helping people, but I also valued more solitary, research driven work. I knew Intellectual freedom and a progressive, supportive community were a necessary part of any job I might hold, but I did not want to obtain a PhD or set out on my own for the wilds of self-employment. I knew I loved education, but I didn’t want to be a teacher. So the world has another librarian.
Through a friend, I began working at Albany Public Library as a Library Clerk and found the public library united my passions for working with people and knowledge in a democratic, autonomous space. Librarians can be educators without being constricted by the bureaucracy that comes with teaching. Librarians can also be historians, but don’t have to work within the traditional academic or museum systems, where publishing requirements or institutional obligations can take up lots of time. Attracted as I am to intellectual autonomy and the propagation of alternative historical voices, working as a local history librarian looked like a perfect opportunity to see if I could manifest some of these values. [Read more…] about My First Year As A Local History Librarian
This Holiday Season Record Your Family’s Oral History
By combining technology with time-honored techniques of interviewing and storytelling, this holiday season can be an ideal time for people to hear and preserve eyewitness accounts of life experiences from loved ones for future generations, says an historian at Baylor University’s Institute for Oral History.
“One thing almost all Americans share is regret that when we were children, we did not listen better when our parents, grandparents and older relatives or friends told stories about people and places alive only in their memories,” said Lois Myers, associate director of the institute. “Such oral traditions may be the most fragile links to our family history.”
With sound or video recordings, people can uncover and preserve the origins of family rituals — such as holiday celebrations, common sayings or even recipes, Myers said. [Read more…] about This Holiday Season Record Your Family’s Oral History
Historic Site Seeks Yonkers Immigration Stories
Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site is designing an exhibit about the rise of Yonkers as an immigrant city, set for a phased opening beginning in September 2016. From its start as a Lenape fishing village and Dutch patroonship, to the industrious peak of the 1900s, and into modern times, the growth of Yonkers can be attributed to the various ethnic groups that have settled in the area.
The site is seeking local first- and second-generation immigrants to assist with the creation of this exhibit. Interviews will be conducted on an ongoing basis through the remaining months of 2015. [Read more…] about Historic Site Seeks Yonkers Immigration Stories
Bronx Stories of Courage, Commitment
In Bronx Faces and Voices: Sixteen Stories of Courage and Commitment (Texas Tech University Press, 2014) sixteen men and women – religious leaders and activists, elected officials and ordinary citizens tell their personal, uncensored stories of the New York City borough — before, during, and after the troubled years of arson, crime, abandonment, and flight in the 1970s and 1980s.
The interviews are drawn from the Bronx Institute Archives Oral History Project’s interviews with hundreds of Bronx residents in the early 1980s, now held in the Special Collections division of the Leonard Lief Library of Lehman College, CUNY. [Read more…] about Bronx Stories of Courage, Commitment
Historic Huguenot Street’s Oral History Project
Historic Huguenot Street is undertaking a local oral history project, “Stories From Stones.”
The purpose of this project is to collect and preserve the stories of the New Paltz Huguenots, their descendants, the community, and all who have been impacted by Historic Huguenot Street. [Read more…] about Historic Huguenot Street’s Oral History Project
Otsego Lake Life Focus Of Fenimore Museum Event
Hear experiences and memories of Otsego Lake from oral histories of local residents during “Food for Thought” Wednesday, October 22 at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown.
William Walker, Associate Professor of History at SUNY Oneonta, will play excerpts and lead a discussion on the importance of the lake, how it has changed. [Read more…] about Otsego Lake Life Focus Of Fenimore Museum Event
National Park Service Hosting ‘Community Conversation’
Beginning in the late 1940s historians with the National Park Service collected stories from friends, neighbors and staff of the Roosevelts and Vanderbilts. The tradition of recording people’s memories and using them to understand our history, and the people who created it carries on to this day.
The National Park Service and the Sound and Story Project have teamed up to offer two special events to be held at the Home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Historic Site, in Hyde Parak, NY. [Read more…] about National Park Service Hosting ‘Community Conversation’