Marshall Poe of The Atlantic Monthly and his students at American Univeristy have started a very cool project to gather memories online, MemoryWiki. The site has only been up 2 months and is growing rapidly, Poe says. So far there are more than 430 memoirs in MemoryWiki.
Marshall Poe of The Atlantic Monthly and his students at American Univeristy have started a very cool project to gather memories online, MemoryWiki. The site has only been up 2 months and is growing rapidly, Poe says. So far there are more than 430 memoirs in MemoryWiki.
He says:
The goal of the site is to create a continuously expanding archive of memories on the web. MemoryWiki memoirs can be about almost anything that the writer believes is significant. This includes both personal experiences (a first kiss) and historic experiences (the 9/11 attacks). One might think of MemoryWiki as StoryCorps on the web. Both share a common mission: to allow the people to share their common experiences now and with the future. MemoryWiki is non-profit.
MemoryWiki is built on a modified version of Mediawiki, the same Content Management Software used by Wikipedia. No registration is needed to add memoirs; users just choose a title and begin to type. Once the memoir is entered, MemoryWiki editors (“stewards”) will format it, index it, and then lock it so no further changes can be made. Authors can alter or delete their memoirs at anytime by notifying the editors.
It is not much of a stretch to see MemoryWiki as an effort in Citizens’ or Public Journalism insofar as it allows the participants in significant events to record what happened and how they felt about it. The site is also a contribution to Public History insofar as it gives voice to common people talking about the past.
