KV Library launches OurStoryBridge tools

KEENE VALLEY | Keene Valley Library has released tools, templates, and resources for community story projects, providing a way for organizations and libraries or groups to crowd-source local history. The web-based format, called OurStoryBridge -- online at www.ourstorybridge.org -- is provided at no cost and means any group project could be developed via remote contact and composed with individual audio and related contributions. "This free resource and tool kit is available for libraries and other organizations, emphasizing audio history, collecting and sharing," coordinators said of the StoryBridge launch. Jery Y. Huntley, volunteer manager of Keene Valley Library's ongoing "Adirondack Community: Capturing, Retaining and Communicating the Stories of Who We Are" project, said StoryBridge is "expected to grow within and way beyond our Adirondack borders, building a community for the young and old." It is especially relevant, she said, in the current pandemic. An online how-to with resources, the StoryBridge website was designed using Keene Valley Library's "Adirondack Community" project as a model. The website provides an extensive User Guide, how-to videos, and sample crowdsourcing materials. "We all have a story to tell, many stories," Karen Glass, Keene Valley Library director and sponsor of both projects, said in a news release. "Life is a narrative, woven out of experience and emotion. "Think of OurStoryBridge as the loom on which the fabric of your community's narrative comes together. Each thread, each story binds the fabric tighter and tighter, creating intricate linkages between individuals, groups, organizations, events, environments, locales and more." Huntley, who spearheaded both projects, describes StoryBridge as a "user-friendly framework." "The shape this project takes and the content it captures and communicates remains yours to construct," she said. "We want to help. OurStoryBridge will guide you through how to collect the nuanced histories of your community, to preserve its stories and pass their characteristic wisdom from mouth to ear by going digital." Keene Valley Library's StoryBridge resource was released Sept. 29 at the annual meeting of the Association for Rural and Small Libraries. In the first fifteen months of the ongoing Adirondack Community project here, Keene Valley Library collected 175 stories from 110 storytellers; produced nine podcasts; and provided community, young and old, a sense of local pride, according to Keene Central School principal Bob Woughter. "Through the years our students have participated in projects in which they collect oral histories from older residents, but many of those stories have been lost, unlike the Adirondack Community stories which are brief and on a website fitting the 21st Century." For more information about OurStoryBridge resources: www.ourstorybridge.org Contact Huntley or Glass via email: createyourstoryproject@gmail.com or by phone: (410) 353-6372. OurStoryBridge has been made possible by the Cloudsplitter Foundation, Adirondack Foundation, and community support. You can view, listen and see the KV project: "Adirondack Community: Capturing, Retaining and Communicating the Stories of Who We Are" on the Keene Valley Library website: keenevalleylibrary.org

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KV Library launches OurStoryBridge tools

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