Oral History Projects or Autobiography Projects in Libraries

We're hearing from libraries that are seeking ways to capture the life stories of the older members of the community. Libraries are the perfect setting for oral history projects. There can be autobiography classes or online autobiography licenses on writing life stories. There are great ways that intergenerational projects can happen in libraries as well.

For example, youth can help create Storyboards (an 18 x 24 colorful posterboard that can be populated with stories and photos) or fill out the Life Story Guide for older people. Again, the local library is a great setting for bringing people of all ages together for recording life stories. Even video recording using the first iPad app for video recording (download LifeBio Studio from the Apple App Store to try it out) can be employed to help libraries create simple but powerful videos of the older members of the community, and younger people can help with the recording. License agreements are available to make LifeBio available community wide. 

Autobiography is a natural extension of the work that libraries do with genealogy and family history projects. Libraries are also the perfect place to store the stories gathered for safe keeping now and in the future. In fact, we see a "legacy library" of hardcover books  (see the Legacy Book that is created by LifeBio pictured in this post) of community members' life stories being archived in libraries across the country and around the world. We encourage libraries to seek grant money and we have the tools to make it easier to bridge together the generations and promote better communication. After all, everyone has a story! Everyone could really write a book!

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