Queens Memory Project

Black and white postcard of the Good Citizenship Building in Flushing in 1907
Looking westward from Main Street at the south side of 41st Avenue in Flushing in September 2011

The Queens Memory Project is a digital archive which aims to record and preserve contemporary history across the New York City borough of Queens. The project is a collaborative effort between Queens College and Queens Library that was initially funded through a grant from the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO).[1] Materials in the archive are made accessible to the public through a website which contains oral history interviews and photographs documenting the lives of Queens residents. The stories and images are presented alongside digitized historical photographs, maps, news clippings and other archival records. The goal of the project is to allow visitors to the site to view otherwise scattered archival materials and personal stories in a searchable database of collective memory representing the borough of Queens.

History

The archive began in June 2010 as an independent study for project director and archivist Natalie Milbrodt, then a Special Collections and Archives Fellow in the Queens College Libraries and a master’s degree candidate in the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. Focusing on the neighborhood of Flushing, Milbrodt conducted oral history interviews with 20 residents in the Waldheim neighborhood, a small area less than a mile from downtown Flushing.[2] A grant from the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) enabled her to establish collaboration with Queens Library to combine archival materials from their holdings relevant to Queens history with those of Queens College. The website for the Queens Memory Project was later developed by software firm Whirl-i-Gig and officially launched to the public on October 27, 2011.[3] The site combines digital audio of the project interviews with images and other digital content from the collections. Development of the Queens Memory Project since 2011 has focused on expanded documentation across the borough of Queens, collaboration with educators, scholars, artists,[4][5] and community groups.[6] Future development will incorporate Web 2.0 technology to allow direct user contributions.[7]

Oral Histories

The collection contains over 290 individual oral history interviews from residents of Queens. The recordings are in digital WAV format.

Wild Sound Recordings

Wild Sound recordings are audio recordings that document events and public places in Queens. The recordings are in digital WAV format.

Photographs

Digital photographs of Queens residents and events are included in the project as well as digitized historical images from the contributing archival collections. Digital images are stored in TIFF format.

Maps/News Clippings/Ephemera

Other items in the Queens Memory Project archive include digitized maps, news clippings, and other ephemera. Digital images are stored in TIFF format.

References

  1. ↑ "Metropolitan New York Library Council awards $70,000 in grants to support collaborative digitization projects Archived April 14, 2012, at the Wayback Machine." (1 November 2010). Hadassah News. Retrieved 17 September 2011.
  2. ↑ The City University of New York, Queens College (30 November 2010). "Capturing the American experience through Queens" [press release]. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
  3. ↑ The City University of New York, Queens College (19 October 2011). "Queens Memory Project to Capture the American Experience and Kick Off StoryCorps' "Queens Week" Oct. 28 - Nov. 2, 2011" [press release]. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
  4. ↑ Bartlett, Josey (4 April 2010). "‘Let’s Hear It for Queens’ sings loudly and proudly about our borough: New show oh so much more than a history lecture". Queens Chronicle. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
  5. ↑ Kearl, Mary (3 July 2013). "Celebrating the history and recovery of Broad Channel and the Rockaways after Sandy" [blog post]. Queens Library. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
  6. ↑ "Queens Perspectives: A Tribute to Borough President Helen Marshall" (24 October 2013) [video recording of live event]. Queens Public Television. Retrieved 26 October 2014. The event, which took place on 13 June 2013 ("Marshall honored at Borough Hall General Assembly," Queens Gazette, 26 June 2013), included the unveiling of the Queens General Assembly Dialogue Handbook, and mention of oral histories conducted by the group's members, both projects accomplished in collaboration with the Queens Library and the Queens Memory Project.
  7. ↑ Banrey, Jason (18-24 November 2010). "A Place To Store Queens’ Memories." Queens Tribune. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
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