By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist
On September 6th and 7th, we held a
story collection event at EOP. I spoke to five community members about what it
was like growing up on Elmira’s Eastside. We also scanned photographs which
other community members had brought in. Our plan is to not only use the stories
and images in our up-coming exhibit on the Eastside, but also to share them as
part of an on-line digital collection. If you, or anyone you known, has images
or stories that they’d like to share for either part of the Eastside project,
please contact me at (607) 734-4167 ex. 207.
Edna Mae Taylor, Woodrow Aikens, and Boyd Lee Taylor by the old EFA, 1950. Image courtesy of Edna Mae Taylor. |
The Chemung County Historical Society recently joined the
South Central Regional Library Council and I am super excited about it. SCRLC has
all sorts of resources for digitizing collections including training, grants,
and equipment. Members can share their digital collections via the New York
Heritage website for researchers and educators to use. We already have three
collections up on the website thanks to past collaborations with the Steele
Memorial Library and the Corning Museum of Glass, but I hope to add more. This
autumn, I plan to apply for a grant to digitize and post our oral history
collection to New York Heritage so we can better share it with the world.
We currently have over 100 oral history recordings in various
formats including audio cassette, VHS, and digital recordings. Topics include,
among other things, the history of the local African-American and
Asian-American communities; veterans’ experiences in the military; the flood of
1972; and the role Chemung County played in the 1969 moon landings. As I
mentioned in an earlier post, in-house digitization of recorded media isn’t too
expensive provided you have the right play-back equipment, but it is time
consuming. A grant would allow us to digitize everything in one fell swoop without
tying up computers or staff. We also have some born-digital material I hope to
post in the coming months, whether or not we get the grant.
I once interviewed a woman who was convinced her story wasn’t
worth capturing because it had just been her, living her life. That, I
explained, was exactly what made it so valuable. I wanted her story of working
in a local department store. I want your story of being a student or an
activist or a housewife or whatever you are. I want your story because it is
unique and valuable and fills in the history of our county. If you want to
share it, I want to hear it. Call me. I’m ready to listen.