Moving Beyond, Part 1

Four years ago, we knew we wanted to do a website for our community/history project, Voices of the Violet Crown. When we launched it July 5, 2011, we envisioned having maybe a year’s worth of stories to share with neighbors, both near and far. Since then, we have filled up our corner of the blogosphere with posts, features, videos, photos, and community links and news.

In 2003, we began our project with exhibits—history, maps, community resources, and recent neighborhood photos (including the one at right)—in the Community Tent at the first Violet Crown Festival. Over the next seven years, we had exhibits at the event and enjoyed the camaraderie of working with neighbors on Violet Crown projects.

Next week we will reach a milestone—the first anniversary of our website. We know that the stories we present can be seen as unique to where we live. We also hope our readers discover something here that inspires them, and they will become involved in a project reflecting what is special about their own neighborhood.

In 2009, we had the opportunity to attend the national Oral History Association’s annual meeting, with the theme “moving beyond the interview.” We met oral historians from around the U. S. who had found innovative ways to share the information they gathered—through books, performances, websites, music, and films. Today, the Oral History Association is taking that a step further. It is collaborating with other groups on the Oral History in the Digital Age project, to find the best ways to collect, curate, and distribute oral history using the latest technology.

Our Voices of the Violet Crown website is one way we have moved beyond the interview. (See other ways we’ve done it here, under “Community Outreach.”) We also learned that the concept has other applications. For one, it means moving beyond what we experience on the surface of our everyday lives, so that we can discover deeper connections to other people and other times.

Our oral history project has not been without its challenges, despite our best efforts. People who seemed eager to be interviewed and then changed their minds. Limited funding. People who volunteered to help us transcribe interviews (a key, and typically expensive, part of oral history work) then decided they couldn’t. Equipment problems. The difficulty of finding a new fiscal sponsor, so that we could continue to raise funds. Most of all, special neighbors passing away before we could interview them.

And yet, we have moved beyond those challenges, too. Our original vision for the project still inspires us, and the work we continue to do still feels worthwhile.

Join us for “Moving Beyond, Part 2,” coming Thursday, July 5—our website’s first anniversary—on Voices of the Violet Crown.

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