AN area that interests me is the use of blogs as a way to record and make available details of times past.
The ease of which pages can be updated allows people to enter details quickly, but also opens them up to those around the internet who can add their own experiences from past research.
Chris Vallance writes about Posts from the Front in WW1, which tells of how Bill Lamin a school teacher from Poole is updating a Blogger site with the letters of his grandfather who served in the trenches of the First World War.
I've written in the past about how Julia Shuvalova has made available a record of her grandmother's life in Russia during WW2, and I recently crossed a site from a former British soldier who now lives in France about his experiences in Vietnam.
Although I still think the researchers working on the Mitchell and Kenyon archive are missing a trick...
what a brilliant idea - every over-70 person (like my mum) should be given training to tap away about their past.
Posted by: Charlie Beckett | June 07, 2007 at 22:25
Hi Charlie
Interesting thought.
I suppose something similar could be adopted by journalism students, they have the chance to get up to speed on blogs and people have an important part of their life chronicled.
Posted by: Craig | June 08, 2007 at 10:35
Hi Craig,
First of all, thanks a lot for the link. I think you and Charlie are absolutely right - even more so as a year or two back a very elderly gentleman has become an online superstar. All he did was sitting in front of a computer, recording on video himself telling about his life etc., and uploading it all to YouTube.
I certainly think a lot of "silver searchers" could prove very blog-savvy.
Posted by: Julia | June 09, 2007 at 18:05
Craig,
some interesting blogs
The Vietnam images have a haunting quality in some instances, especially the ones of the women - what was their future?
Rob
Posted by: Rob Artisan | June 09, 2007 at 21:21
There would indeed be some interesting stories to tell, that would then be available long in the future.
Posted by: Craig | June 11, 2007 at 18:30