Remembering World War One: Sharing History/Preserving Memories

is a two-year project that will support an immersive intergenerational and cross-cultural commemoration of the World War One Centenary, which presents an unprecedented opportunity to harness local history around the War.

This project addresses and explores the question of “What knowledge, capacity, functions or infrastructure can libraries and archives share?” by focusing on Connecticut’s role at home and abroad in the Great War, sharing the state’s rich cultural heritage from libraries, museums and archives across Connecticut andConnecticut and by developing tools for individuals and local history organizations to make their content available for public discovery and research.

The project will provide a technology platform and collaborative workflow for what we call public engagement hubs that will promote sharing and, discovery and long-term preservation of digital content for both individuals and local institutions.

We’ll empower local libraries, museums and archives to hold community events by creating toolkits and curriculum centered on personal sharing, archiving and collection of digital contributions of WWI stories, photos, and memorabilia. These toolkits will allow institutions to replicate the project with any topic or theme they desire.

Through this project, we aim to build capacity for digital projects within local organizations and groups for 1) long-term digital preservation of community photos, objects and stories, 2) low cost and high impact inter-generational and cross-cultural communications, and 3) encouraging open access to content and metadata for wide distribution and reuse.