As usual, this Monday’s link roundup is pretty eclectic.  For music buffs, check out MIT’s Oral History Project which looks at 100 years of music at MIT. For fans  of singer, songwriter Kathy Mattea,  don’t miss her interview with Graffiti Magazine about her latest album Coal. She talks about the importance of place and family in the writing of the songs. And for any of you thinking about using speech recognition software, you might be quite surprised by Jon Morrow’s 20-minute video. I certainly was.

• Canadian Genealogy Centre. The Centre, under the auspices of Library and Archives Canada,  states that its mission and vision is:  “to facilitate the discovery of our roots and family histories as a basic part of our Canadian heritage. To encourage the use of genealogy and the resources available in libraries and archives as tools for life-long learning.”

• Eyeless in Gaza. “Joe Sacco is one of the world’s leading exponents of the graphic novel form…writers often get called “unique”. But Sacco’s work truly is, combining as it does oral history, memoir and reportage with cartoons in a way that, when he started out, most people – himself included, at times – considered utterly preposterous.”

• Music at MIT Oral History Project. “For over 100 years, music has been a vibrant part of MIT’s culture. This history covers a wide variety of genres, including orchestral, chamber, and choral musical groups, as well as jazz, musical theater, popular and world music…Through in-depth recorded audio interviews with current and retired MIT music faculty, staff, former students, and visiting artists, the Music at MIT Oral History Project is preserving this valuable legacy for the historical record.”

• Kathy Mattea on coal and frog gigging. “The Grammy-winning West Virginia native talks to [Graffiti Magazine] about her new album, ‘Coal’… I’ve gone through music I had long since forgotten; I’ve discovered the roots to a lot of music I’ve been doing for a long time…I uncovered a lot of family stories; my own history. I mean it has been profound; really a life changing experience.”

• A Conversation with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. “A month before his death, Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy discussed the making of his memoir, True Compass. This interview was conducted via e-mail in July 2009.”

• Software helps share stories. “A team of researchers with the Montreal Life Stories project and the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS) have been able to turn a wish list of possibilities into a software program capable of organizing, classifying and eventually sharing recordings of memories and experiences. Stories Matter is a free, adaptable software program capable of working with Macs or PCs.”

• Does Speech Recognition Software Really Work? “One of my favorite posts from around the web last week came from our own Associate Editor Jon Morrow. He recorded a 20-minute video post for Problogger about how he works with speech recognition software to do all of his blogging.”

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Another Monday and a potpourri of fascinating links to the world of stories. Two of my favorites this week are Mapping Main Street and a talk by Elizabeth Gilbert on creativity. And for those of you considering self-employment be sure to read Leo Babauta’s piece on getting started. He’s got some very practical advice.

• Put Your Ancestors on Our Cover! “We’re looking for a great ancestral photo to feature on the cover of the January 2010 Family Tree Magazine (that’s our 10th anniversary issue!).  Maybe your family photo is the one.”

• Mapping Main Street: “… a collaborative documentary media project that creates a new map of the country through stories, photos and videos recorded on actual Main Streets. The goal is to document all of the more than 10,000 streets named Main in the United States.”

• Interview: Sue William Silverman on Memoir Writing: “Sue William Silverman’s newest book, Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir, reads like a memoir about writing memoir – and that’s exactly what the accomplished and respected nonfiction writer had in mind when she decided to do a book about writing craft.”

• The Get-Started-Now Guide to Becoming Self-Employed: “One of the best things I ever did was quit my day job and become self-employed. I’m so happy with it that I’m recommending it to everyone: my kids, my friends, my sisters.” ~ from Zen Habits and Leo Babauta.

• Once upon a time in Palo Alto: “Unlike their bigger oral history counterparts, these videos are low-budget and brief but they give watchers impressions of a city that most of us probably don’t know too well, if at all.”

• I Love My Librarian Award: “… encourages library users to recognize the accomplishments of exceptional public, school, college, community college, or university librarians. The award is administered by the American Library Association with support from Carnegie Corporation of New York and The New York Times.”

• Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity: “Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. It’s a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.”

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I was particularly intrigued by two of this week’s link roundup  because they are different and somewhat unusual ways of  unlocking our life stories. One article has to do with potato salad and the other our body scars. It got me thinking of the stories attached to my various scars. Do you think this could be the beginning of a best seller?

• Our Scars Tell the Stories of Our Lives: “Sometimes they’re stark tales of life-threatening catastrophes, but more often they’re just footnotes to the ordinary but bloody detours that befall us on the roadways of life.”

• Life List: A Woman’s Quest for the World’s Most Amazing Birds: “By documenting the tension between the obligation to others and the obligation to oneself, Gentile has written a book as much about the life of women as about a woman’s life.” ~ Christian Science Monitor

• Metadata Tags for Photos (Windows XP): “Have you ever wanted a better way to organize your digital photos? If you use Windows XP you should consider using metadata tags.”

• Google Quadruples Historical Newspaper Archive: “Google announced last week that it has quadrupled its searchable archive of historical news articles, many of which are free to access. Additions include the Halifax Gazette (dating as far back as 1753, as shown below), Sydney Morning Herald, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Village Voice, the Manila Standard, The Nation (from Thailand) and others.”

• Memoirs on the Go and the Blurring of the Personal and Public: “…blogs are serving as a kind of “memoir-on-the-go,” one that allows for dialogue and also a large readership. … I believe the permeability between memoirs and blogging — and also practices such as “facebooking” — will, if anything, feed the memoir phenomenon:”

• Mapping Memories: Stories of Refugee Youth in Montreal: “… a collaborative multi-media project which aims to integrate documentary video, new media and personal stories to raise awareness around the situation of refugee youth in Montreal.”

• Potato salad: Family stories and secrets: “Quite frankly, it doesn’t matter if you use mustard or mayo, horseradish or pickles, potato salad isn’t potato salad without the memories tied to the well-loved dish.”

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A summer Monday and a holiday here in Canada. If you’re looking for some fascinating reading, check out this week’s link roundup.

• Life Advice From Old People: Actor/writer Seth Menachem records video interviews of old people in his neighborhood and posts them to his blog. Thanks to Larry Lehmer for alerting me to this.

• Canadian Roots UK: “…a non-profit, self-help group for families and Canadian  military fathers  separated during WWII. We help members to help themselves try and trace their fathers in Canada.”

• Lost and Found Photos: “This site contains links, audio, images, video, and text related to the practices and perceptions surrounding lost and found vernacular photographs.”

• Every business needs a ‘secret sauce’ : “[Paul]Taylor, who lives in North Vancouver .., recently launched a community Web site, arcalife.com, that aims to preserve family legacies by storing life experiences, events, stories, family trees, family histories or genealogy research all in one place.”

• iPhone Document Scanner: “Kyle A. Koch is an industrial design student…[He]set out to make something that would ensure clean, consistent pictures of documents taken with the iPhone.”  Price: US$45.

• Nova Scotia Man Accidentally Discovers Family History Scanned Into Google Books, Asks for It to Be Removed: “..the Halifax man only discovered his book was in the Google archive when he was doing an Internet search in May.”

• Oh heck, I’ll just publish it myself: “Technology – and tenacity – are making self-published titles the hottest new sector of the book market.”

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It’s Monday and time to round up some great links for your perusal. Here’s what I found this past week:

• It’s Our Story to have National Press Club conference July 24: “It’s Our Story is a video oral history project that uncovers the power, pride, and personal struggles of living with a disability. It’s a uniquely American story and challenges our most fundamental values of freedom, autonomy, and independence.”

• Upgrading the Computer History Museum: The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., is a geek’s paradise. Its warehouse-style exhibit room is laden with old Macs, supercomputers, and reel-to-reel storage tapes.

• E-Workshop – Getting Started with Oral History: Offered by the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University, the course introduces you to oral history and walks you through planning and executing a project. Before you complete the workshop, you will have experienced writing a project plan and conducting a one-on-one oral history interview. Begins July 22nd. Cost $75.

• 10 Places To Get Cool Media Clips For PowerPoint Presentations: Want to add some zip to your  PowerPoint presentations?  Here are 10 super websites for free media clips for PowerPoint.

• The Beneficial Effects of Life Story and Legacy Activities: Written by Pat McNees for the Journal of Geriatric Care Management. “…research increasingly tells us, that life story writing and reminiscence can improve the mood and quality of life for adults with more years behind than ahead of them.”

• Story Poems as Memoir: Inspired to write since childhood by her writer father,  Janet Riehl penned a six generational family memoir told through story poems in Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary (ISBN 0595374999).

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