Community Storytelling via Mobile Devices: Museum of Durham History project
I’m quite excited to announce a new frontier in our community storytelling mission — the use of visitors’ own mobile devices to record stories. The Museum of Durham History incorporated our cloud-based tool to record stories of members of the Ar-Razzaq Islamic Center in Durham.
Ar-Razzaq is one of the oldest Muslim communities in North Carolina, and a year long community-storytelling initiative culminated in an exhibit at the Museum, “Building Bridges through Good Faith.” The exhibit chronicles through first person testimonials the contributions of the mosque to the West End neighborhood in Durham.
The whole initiative, spearheaded by colleague Katie Spencer, points to a new model for museum initiatives using personal connections and stories to reach out and connect with community. It’s a model that intertwines use of story technology with a community-minded workflow, an area that Katie and I have enjoyed developing over time.
The project use both a portable, event-based Storykiosk rental as well as our mobile platform to record video responses to questions such as:
- How did Ar-Razzaq help shape you into the person you are?
- Share a memory from growing up at Ar-Razzaq
- What’s one thing you want people unfamiliar with Ar-Razzaq to know about it?
And here’s one of the stories recorded onsite at an event at the Islamic Center. Our goal: complementary development of technology and community workflow that connects museums, nonprofits, and local governments with their wide range of communities.