Federal grant money is used for the most remarkable things.
Eleanor and James Moss are not the kind of people who usually make the history books, but they have stories worth remembering. ... Sally Thomas, an adult services librarian at the Hayward Public Library, probed the couple on Tuesday at their home, culling stories about the local milkman, battling housing bias and a neighbor's professed UFO sighting. ... The state library this year awarded $345,000 in "California of the Past" digital storytelling grants to public libraries. The grants are supported by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services.
And you wonder why we can't balance the budget.
This used to be called "oral history," but apparently that phrase doesn't test well. "It's not an oral history," said state library consultant Ira Bray. "These are short little snippets that illuminate an experience these folks have had."
Apparently, when oral history consists of "short little snippets" and is posted online, it becomes "digital storytelling," and is a different thing altogether.
With the advent of YouTube and other online services, recording and sharing videos has become an increasingly common mode of communication and expression. The librarians involved in the "California of the Past" project said they want to take advantage of that trend to record history and make it more accessible.
The big difference between this and YouTube, of course, is that people record short little snippets and post them on YouTube for free. And they don't need to hire consultants to do so.
We've spent over $1,000,000,000,000 (yes, that's the correct number of zeroes for a trillion) on George W. Bush's war in Iraq. Iraq, the country that wasn't involved in 9/11 (unlike Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan).
We could have sent every child in the US to college for free with that money.
"Wonder why we can't balance the budget"
Posted by: pudmat | November 14, 2009 at 01:17 PM