If a slot is still available for the afternoon session, I’d like to propose a session on how public projects can be a forum for capturing and highlighting the texture of cultural experiences. Video documentation works well online for documenting new immigrant groups with strong oral traditions. Narrated personal experience or choral performance can provide compelling ways to make global events more comprehensible.

Does the technology we use also tell its own story? In what ways do paper and video or onsite research and online access change the story told — and the story heard? How do we ensure that our projects operate in a way authentic to those who are telling their story, rather than just what is convenient to our institutions?

I can provide examples from my work with immigrant communities and archives (particularly Sheeko, with Somali youth: blog.lib.umn.edu/ihrc/sheeko/; Digitizing Immigrant Letters (European: www.ihrc.umn.edu/research/dil/Paikens/paikens.htm); and a choral performance of ethnic music: vimeo.com/76913574.

Others interested in this conversation?