Taking Time to Preserve the Past
The world today moves and changes so quickly that sometimes it’s a luxury to get the opportunity to reflect back on the past. Realizing that it’s the past that shapes the future, a number of organizations around the globe are enlisting on-line networks to preserve history. Their goals and their methodology are diverse but all are committed to ensuring that we don’t take our past for granted.
The People of the Past
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) along with Ancestry.com has created the World Memory Project, which utilizes a crowd-sourced website to restore names and stories to those whose identities were nearly silenced during the Holocaust. The site allows people to search vital documents from World War II and add stories, context and personal histories in order to complete the full picture of this time period.According to a Mashable article. the Museum gets about a thousand requests each month for information about victims. Many go unanswered by researchers who must search through microfilm documents. Now, the efforts of volunteers who are tagging those records for searchability, researchers can provide better service. Like being able to find a photograph of one man’s father, the first image he had seen of his parent in more than 65 years.
The Places Loved
For the past two years, The Place + Memory Project has been collecting audio recollections of historic places. “Using people’s memories and stories, we are recreating places that no longer exist,” says the project website. “Places which were important to us. We are creating a series of stories for radio and an online map where you can to add your own memories through text, photos, sound, whatever.”
Spearheaded and run by documentary produces Big Shed Audio for inclusion in programs such as the U.S.’ National Public Radio, the team is enlisting help from the U.S. and beyond.
The Things Treasured
Film buffs around the world are invited to help the German Federal Cultural Association and a coalition of global film societies in identifying historic films.
More than 80 percent of silent films and a high percentage of old sound films have been lost or are now unaccounted for. Lost Films is a collaborative effort to help identify and locate some 3,500 lost or missing films through crowdsourcing.
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