IU Memories

IU Memories

The IU memories project would incorporate oral history, still images, text, and video in a web based experience. The project would aim to capture the public and private history of the University, and its surrounding community through the people who have spent time around the school or are currently active in it.

Users would be able to explore a map of the IU campus and Bloomington community in a fashion similar to google earth or the weather channel feature on the nintendo wii (eventually we would expand to Indianapolis, Carmel, South Bend and beyond). Major points of interest such as the Union, Assembly Hall, Memorial Stadium, and the RTV building would be visible from a zoomed out perspective. Smaller and less significant points of interest such as Kilroys and say a specific Frat house would be accesible to the user if they zoomed in closer. Thus, the major landmarks would act as a guide and a good introductory representation. Through searches and exploring users could dig deeper into very specific points of interest right down to someones apartment building or house. Ideally, the map would have a specific look to it that was not 100% realistic but aesthetically uniform and interesting throughout the experience (animation, drawings, fonts).

Once a user selected a specific spot, a pop up player would appear which would begin playing a randomly selected story obtained at that location. Stories could be skipped if the user was not interested. In addition, text would pop up on the screen which would provide factual information (if available) about the point of interest. If the place was very well known a live web cam could also provide a glimpse of the landmark at the current moment. Video could play of the little five when people are looking at the track feild, and a slideshow of photos would also grace the screen. Obviously some points of interest would have much more content than others, but every place could have a lot of potential. Users could upload their photos but moderators could take them down and/or approve them so it doesn't just become another cluttered site like myspace or facebook.

In order to obtain enough content to launch the site, a substantial amount of oral histories, interviews, videos, and photos would have to be obtained by the team and cataloged by the web developers before the site could launch. This would give people a grasps for what the project was all about instead of simply being another upload heavy, network site.

Oral accounts would be collected by students and professionals. Several interview tents would be made available where people could stop in, answer a few questions, and tell their stories. The booths would initially be set up at places like the union, nicks, and outside the tailgaiting area before a football game. Several booths would initially be put around the campus and promototed to gain support, interest, and get the program off to a strong start. Eventually, fewer booths would be needed and would simply show up at places where people would be pleasently suprised to see them. The booths would always be around. Their locations would constantly change but each day new content would be gathered.

Interviewers would be trained to get as much interesting content as they could from each contributor while also keeping the process moving along. The idea would be to get good content and fast. 5-20 interviews should be obtained in a tent during the course of a shift.

After their interview/story the participant would be given an account number and web adress where they could submit pictures or writings (like poems) or scanned programs for the web moderators to check out and see if its worth putting up.

A video and photo team would also be involved during the construction phase, in which professional quality images would be obtained.

Waivers would also have to be made to make it clear that the story they have provided now belongs to the IU memories project.

Steve Burns