So I'm going to get the recording started and I'm going to welcome our presenters today. The founder of ourstorybridge, Jery Huntly comes to us from the Keen Valley library, AJ Gooden, Supervisor, Igiugig Tribal Library (AK); and Debby Carter, Assistant Librarian, Tremonton City Library (UT) and thank you for being here and doing great work through WebJunction webinar. 
>> Thank you for inviting us to talk and we're really happy to be here. I was going to show our faces as we went on. Is that something that you do or I do? 
Right now let's get started. We have three objectives for our presentation today. First we hope that you'll understand what's on these websites and how you can use them. The two websites are Adarondak community and our story bridge, connecting the past and the present. We hope that you'll be inspired to use the teacher's guide that's on both websites so that you have a resource to use and share with students and teachers and that you recognize how you can help us improve these projects if you're interested. Because we start as a small group in a rural area. If you do have questions and we really hope you do, hold them until the end and at that point, Debbie, A.J., and I will answer them. If they're really some pressing things, let us know and Jennifer will decide if we should stop and take care of them. At this point hold your questions and we look forward to see what you have to say. So we will start not with our story bridge but with Adirondack Community because you have to understand Adirondack Community before you understand the story bridge. This is the homepage of the website. It has information about us. Podcasts, teachers guide, the ability to hear your story and I only point that out because you'll know what's there and how to find some of the things that I'm talking about. 
You will be able to click on 3 to 5 minute audio stories that have up to five photos scrolling as you listen. In fact, the way they scroll, people often think it's really a video. It's just an audio story with photos scrolling. It's different. These are short, easy to click on and you can just listen in little bits for five minutes or some people get hooked and they listen for hours. It's regular people listening to regular people. So this is how you would do it. Oh, before that we were marked as uninhabitable when American industrialists built their camps. An outdoor wonder land and they built railroads so they could get here. The big attraction is the 46 high peaks that are over 4,000 feet. Not big in the west but big for the east coast. But most importantly our town population is about 1,100. We have a central school of 160 students. The population struggles financially. They have 30 jobs. 38% of the students are labeled disadvantaged and we have similar problems as for the communities but we also have the original dissen DANTs that still come here. That population in all cases skews old. We wanted to hear from people what stories are relevant to our community. 
They came up with arts and cultures, outdoor activities, daily life, community and natural and man made environment. Well, let's say you wanted to listen to a story in people, you click and you will see all the stories. And I have to say, if you haven't listened to a story you're not going to get the magic of what we're talking about. So I hope that if you haven't, that you'll do it when we're done. So I'm assuming a bunch of you listen to the story who is that that has to do with the home and his wife and surprise some of their young workers. I'm not going to give you the surprise for you to listen. In addition to the stories we have collected, there's other topics that we were collecting stories in outside of the original 8 and we also realized that in an area where we don't have great internet we want a way for people to hear the stories. So we create podcasts. Musical transitions, on a free podcast service and we found topics like social justice and social change. I just posted a bunch of stories about a devastating storm that hit us here and in Vermont, ten years ago the end of this month so we have a lot of podcasts to listen to as well. Different media to serve the interest of different kinds of people. Now we started this in June 2019. We had a harsh winter climate. We had COVID. I want you to take a second and guess, how many 3 to 5 minute stories do you think we have collected and posted? I'll wait a minute and see what the first numbers look like. Thank you and I have to say I'm in shock. 
We're volunteers in a really small town and we're pretty excited that the milestone of 200 stories we met and in fact as of today we had 221 stories. 
I believe we'll collect the numbers that you have put in chat, but we're at 221. I mean, we started with 150 story tellers. 450 people are followers of the facebook page. 
300 are in the list that we call on for more stories and over 1,300 people have listened to the podcast. It's pretty exciting for our little town that we have 221. One of the things that got us there was that from the second we got the idea, we started marketing. 
Posters around town, press releases business cards for people with appointments. 
E-mailing all kinds of people. 
We are constantly marketing. 
First to bring people in to tell their stories. Now to tell their stories and also to check the website and listen to the stories and podcasts and the result has been a lot of really wonderful stories including one just a few days ago and something we'll tell you about toward the end. So we're really excited. We surpassed the 200 story miles. It was hard to recruit story tellers at first and then they were nervous. We don't want them to write their stories. We have a methodology to get them to construct it on a scrap of paper and go for it. 
But they tell their story and they're so full of joy and then they say I can't wait to tell my neighbor so they can tell their stories. Everyone is talking and as you can see it's way beyond our town. I had someone come up to me and she said by the time I got to the evening which came early, I found myself really, really sad. So I would go to the website, I would listen to a story about our community coming together, volunteering, taking care of each other and the sadness and my heart was warm and that made me feel really good. Young and old don't know who lives here. They live in the present and this changed our community as they learned so much more. First to capture stories before the story tellers are gone and 2-thirds of our story tellers are over 65. And we wanted to get students involved and helping to prepare them whether they move away and come back. If they come back, to want to help their neighbors. To be good citizens. To volunteer and we talk to the teachers as I'll explain soon on how they can use the stories. So these kids. As soon as I go to school I look at the website analytics and I see some of them might have looked nonChalantly. 
Another way from the traditional way we dealt with oral history. 
And we hope that you'll go and we hope that you'll listen to lots of stories, but a few months in, we decided maybe we have something. Can a library like ours help other libraries with exactly what we did. That was our story bridge which was a website at our story bridge.org.
And we have a tool kit that gives you more details than you ever want to know so that you can learn from what we did and do what we did and an FAQ page, a sample of stories and the ability to contact us if you want to. And this is free. We make a commitment that every second that we can spare that any community that is interested, we will help you. We will walk you through every step. We will help your community get what our community now has through our story bridge. Really important. I sound like a sales person. Let me stop. Community members stepped up and endowed it through the future and we had a goal of creating part time jobs in our community. Our story bridge was funded by wonderful foundations here. We're looking to hire staff so we have more people to help you and the cost of doing in our story bridge project and the questions are about $2,000 to start up and the costs really depend upon whether you have volunteer and or staff to conduct the project. But you need $2,000 or less. Looking back and I will change that, it's really much less and both of these projects are lead by volunteers. So let me tell you what's in this tool kit that we will walk you through as you have questions. A user guide, sample documents and a teacher's guide. Specifically, this is the user guide that you can download. It's been downloaded 300 times already. It contains an introduction to our story bridge, why you consider doing it. From your first thought, oh, could we do this? What do you do? How do you talk to your board? How do you plan your personnel? What order you do things in? When do you start marketing? How you release? 
Every single thing that you need to do in a plan is there. 
Describes the personnel that can help you, current staff or anyone part time. How you budget the grants you can try to get. 
How you fund raise for it. 
Although your library might be able to pay for it outright. 
Partnerships and specific recommendations on technology. 
Specific recommendations on software and we tend to do things no cost or low cost. And a whole lot for your story bridge project. Now integrated into the user guide are links to other helpful items. These are also posted on the website. They are short videos like 5 minutes each and a good number of them, you see a screen and in some of them it's just talking. And you can see and hear instructions in a different media to help you through. We have ten of them linked to the user guide. We also have a page of sample documents, these documents are linked to the user guide. Things like when I went first to the principle of our K through 12 school to say will you partner with us? And the end was the asks. What I wanted him to do. 
Well, before I got to the asks he said what I can do and I told him and the school was signed on. And samples of our marketing materials. They can change things and do them in other ways but at least they can learn from what we did. One way is to go to the website and click on a bunch of zooms a variety of people have made. It makes what it is today and what it can become tomorrow. You create closer bonds, promote connections that hopefully will lead to acts of kindness, assistance and support in time of need. Do you want your kids on the internet checking Kim Kardashian's shoes?
Or realizing that the old guy next door sitting on the porch they make fun of was in the battle of the bulge and he told a story about what it was like to be in war when everyone around him died. Will the child be kinder? Will he shovel the snow for that man? We like to think they will. You can preserve stories that will be lost. You can engage the younger generations which is hard and encourage them to remain in your home community after they go away, to come back. If they're there, learn what they can do to become a part of the community and give back to it. You can educate people and visitors of all ages and inspire them to contribute. You can celebrate what makes your community unique. Maybe track new residents and visitors. Reveal histories that are forgotten. I have learned so much about this community I can't believe it. 
Acknowledge the difficult times.
Understand why streets and places are named as they are. 
It's made our archives much more active than it ever was and made people interested in the resources they have. We started with a marketing program and we continue. We make presentations we have an E-news letter for our story bridge. We network with all organizations. We have a logo, new story projects used. 
So with that, I'd like to introduce Debbie Carter. Who had the guts to start the first story bridge project and she will tell you about our stories, our heritage and story and our BRB stories.org. Thanks, go for it. 
>> Welcome. I am the assistance librarian, one of them at the library located in treemont, Utah and you can access our stories of our bear river Valley at WWW.RBRV stories.org. So so we checked out the website and contacted our story bridge and applied for the grant through the library services and technology app. Luckily we received the grant and we began using this tool kit that you have heard so much about. It made the process so easy. That's all there is to it. They're right there in the tool kit. So that created a huge challenge for us. Our little town was basically shutdown like everybody else's was. But everyone has a story and it was important to keep the stories. 
And they're starting grant round number three. So as I said. It was easy, easy to follow the tool kit. If I can do it, believe me, anybody can. It's just that easy. All you have to remember is everybody has a story to tell. And all of them are important. The community is a multiyear local history project we feel these stories need to be told and you can listen as we told you to the old and the new, the past and the present. You'll see 8 categories of stories. There's a link that should be coming up in your chat. She is about 99 years old and if you click on that link, listen to that story and we'll be back with you in about three minutes. Please enjoy. 
>> I think Jennifer changed things and we neglected to share that we weren't going to play the second one and we hope they listen to it before because we were scared about bandwidth. 
>> If you feel that you have time, do it. 
>> Okay. So just a note, there's the link in chat. And then it should open in your browser to listen up. 
>> We'll wait a few minutes. 
Sorry about that confusion. 


We are just about returning. Oh, people said that was so wonderful. Oh, good. 
>> If I remember that was 329. 
I'm at 2:30. So let's wait another minute. 
>> A few minutes, okay. 
>> I think maybe 20 more seconds and we can start. Nothing is perfect with technology. 
>> Oh, that's great. I think -- 
and if you did, did you notice that the name appears in both of those projects? I won't give it away who it is took place in the home and that was in the town of Keen Valley New York, then the first of the ten river Valley stories were told, well, that raised some questions and after research they discovered that indeed Jerome C.Hunsaker are the ancestor of Jerome C.Hunsaker. 
He was born in 1812 and died in 1889. He and his wife Eliza left New York with Joseph Smith, the founder of the church of latter day saints and they continued on after Joseph Smith was killed for his believes. They travelled west in covered wagons and they started a church's settlement in Utah. So they're also descendants of Abraham Hunsaker.
But the amazing thing is is that they never knew. So where will your ancestors be? Will you find a story that connects you with them? And where will they end up? You'll find out at the story bridge. We'll see you then. 
>> Thank you, the connections we made, queue twilight zone music.
We haven't found anything like that in the village, but I turn it over for you to talk about your project and thank you again Debbie. 
>> My computer lapsed a little bit. 
>> It's located on lake Iliamna.
The word Igiugig means where it swallows the lake. I was privileged to live there 8 years as a teacher and part time librarian and now I reside on a farm in southeast Kansas but I continue to work for the Igiugig tribal Library. I'm so grateful that I get to do that. The library is housed in the local school. And I learned at an online conference and I knew that it would be something that our tribal council would support. Our story bridge directly supports the mission to connect generations through stories, preserve local knowledge and especially to revitalize traditional language.
Most of the first language speakers are elderly and many have passed away. And preserve as much as possible and have the young people begin speaking again. So our website is still being built. It translates to bridge of stories. Now our story bridge is awesome because it's a template that you can adapt to meet local needs. For example, one of our goals is to have all of the stories translated and shared to support our learners. 
I asked for a small grant to fund the technology side of things. And it has so much potential that I expect the minimal cost associated with the software that you need to record the story and build the web page to share them will be built into our regular library budge and be an on going program. Even though we have only 55 full time residents they all have multiple stories and we're also inviting visitors to share their perspectives and experiences. 
It's a very forgiving process. 
We gathered 8 stories so far with many more people willing to share. I hope that you'll check it out. 
>> Thank you for doing this and this morning A.J. sent me links to the story firsts and they were amazing. And then the teacher's guide on both of the websites. So click at the top to see teacher's guide. If you're on our story bridge, click at the top and it's a part of the tool kit we realized that the stories we're gathering have lessons that can teach everyone about life. They're not just about the little towns and we really want to reach students. 
We also realize that he starts talking and the kids fall asleep. What if he plays a five minute story with photos from someone in world war II? They'll get more interested. They'll be more likely to understand and one is a document that shows you how to use it. One document is the story summaries. We're up to 182 of our 221 stories. We have the name the story teller, the number of the story. A two sentence synopsis. All the stories are suitable for middle and high school but we have also reviewed them and put codes on them. And there's a code and teachers at any level can look and use them and within a few weeks, the direct link -- you can go to a link on top and get there by centering the story name. Within a few weeks, the direct link will be right here for every story. A teacher reads it, they go right to the story. 
We also had a 11th grader help me pick 28 courses usually taught in middle and high schools around the country and she category rised them. And again, these will be link able as well to make it easier. Using the stories helps us meet our kids in the media that compels them. And demonstrates something that you're trying to teach and helps kid learn their history. 
Gets them engaged and learn what makes their community special. 
And the took kit answers almost every question that you may have as they can atest to, we need to get the word out and that's how people are signing on and starting their projects. And only in the case of announcing last week and where the Olympics was they decide to announce early. So we're kind of waiting.
There are a bunch of them are starting now. But we present to create awareness of the free resources, to generate interest in starting. We create a growth plan. We provide assistance and we're always looking for funding and if you're interested, we'd love it if you help and use and improve the tools. If you or someone you know is interested in doing this, check out the websites. Or fill out the form on the story bridge website and within 24 hours and the way to bridge your community together, guide people to our story bridge. So your patrons, especially students, introduce local teachers to the stories and to the teachers guide especially. Put links on your websites to what we're doing. 
Follow and like the story bridge project and facebook pages. We post stories twice a week. Right now we have a whole month of tropical storm Irene stories. 
Before that we had a month of Olympic stories and e-mail us. 
And if you have YDs for grants, let us know. And with that, listening and being here for us today, this is the e-mail address if you're interested. If you have other questions, beyond what is in the products -- 
products, they're free on the story bridge website, these are the two websites. And these are regular people telling stories, listened to by regular people. 
We think it has great potential in your communities. Can you help us sort through the chat? 
Looks like we have about 13 minutes left to do so. 
>> Thank you so much. So that's something that you'll be adding.
>> And the projects can use a special logo that says they're a story bridge project. Think of this, we released it on September 29th. I thought it would take two years until we got anyone. We have a whole bunch really starting but we're not releasing until they're set and dozens asking questions. Our list of libraries that have been interested is about 600. Don't let that scare you away. But if you have any interest we'll be back to you within 24 hours. 
>> They're going to do it with their libraries 100th anniversary coming up next year.
So there's other themes like 100th anniversary or specifics about a community that would be great to kick this off. 
>> There's a hand full of questions about if they're asked to write out theirs and how are the stories vetted? 
>> There's always one point of in the contact that listens to each stories and make sure that it's suitable. There's been a couple of stories that I have rejected and I don't know if either of you have rejected any.
We really discourage people from writing. How do they walk in when they're nervous and tell a story? We have a way of doing it? And watch the few minutes of a video and you'll see what we do and it really works. It makes it so easy for them to relax and the only time that we had to write something down is if someone struggles with memory so they can kind of look back and jog their memory but other than that, there's nothing written. 
And while we went through the process that you can watch a video on, it's a brief outline. 
I encourage them to go ahead and read the story over lots of times because the goal is to be natural and then to tell it then. And they were a little skeptical. It's very simple but afterwards they were very grateful that we had done it that way and it worked well. 
>> Do you create transcripts or are there subtitles in the stories? 
>> >> Great question. We use a platform and you pay an annual subscription fee for it and they have all the bells and whistles.
Click it and you have a link to put in an e-mail. Click it and three to five minutes it's usually a page and a half. 
Within about an hour, you get a transcript of the story. And it keeps all the transcripts. So yes, we have written transcripts automatically generated. We do closed captioning -- closed captioning is not an option. 
There's also an option to send a link to a potential story teller and instructions and then as opposed to doing it in person. 
>> Can you spell out the software? I'm trying to look it up and I don't see -- 
>> Memria.org. 
>> Okay. Perfect. 
>> Memria.org. 
>> They have a special rate for librarians working on this. 
>> Can you talk about the equipment? So it sounds like that platform would be something to consider as part of that. Is that a part of that? 
>> Yes. 
>> It's 1,000 a year to use the platform and I think they're going to come to it. 
And then there's hardware, we got a Chromebook but now we also got headphones for less than $30 and we bought a booth to keep the sound connected but we realized we didn't need it. And between uses. We use a separate website and it's formatted so it's easy to take the HTML code generated and right when you tell a story, you copy it and paste it right into the website and all of that is in the user manual and all the things about how you program this and click and keep track of the stories, all of that information is in the user guide. 
>> Fantastic. 
>> It might be helpful to talk about why this is more unique to our community. 
But it's a few hours of the story that's carefully edited down to become the beautiful emotional story it becomes. This is easy. A story teller can retell the story if they're not comfortable with what they said but you put the headphones on and it goes right on to the website. It's scaled for small libraries which makes it even YEZ for for mid size or large libraries. 
>> Excellent. A couple of folks wanted to confirm their understanding of how to be involved and how to contribute so it sounds like the story bridge project can help and support anyone that's interested in doing something like this and somebody said you have to be a member to contribute to the story telling network. But we do ask that you read the user guide. And with limited time we can do it. And we'll put your stories into the teacher's guide but you don't have to belong to anything. You just have to read our stuff, ask us for help and do it. Debbie, A.J., any other thoughts on that? Like I said right now, through the American library association, they're starting grant round three, you know, for different things, it's an amazing opportunity to get because it looks overwhelming but it isn't. It's not a marathon. It's a slow jog. It's nice. 
>> Somebody said does the story bridge support libraries outside of the U.S.? The Caribbean? 
>> Interesting. Because the memory platform started as a platform to collect human rights stories and they do it in Columbia. As far as the platform that we recommend it could be outside of the country. As far as our helping your as long as there's no additional cost to connecting to someone I don't see any reason we wouldn't help someone within the 50 states. 
>> That's sounds good. 
Many states have granting programs that would nest nicely with this project. So a good reminder to look outside of the library sphere for collaborators. 
>> A reminder to listen to some of the stories e-mail us to open the NUZ letter and the other ones and you'll know what new --
you know, what story bridge projects are coming if you subscribe to the E-news letter, free of course. 
>> Fantastic. Thank you so much and I can see in chat already people are feeling the same way.
I'm so inspired. And I have so much hope that this kind of work can really bridge lots of our lives and communities. Thank you for all of your work I will e-mail everyone later today once the report is posted and I'll send a certificate for attending today and that will come to you probably early next week. And also I'll be sending you a short survey as you lead the webex room today we can take time now to take that survey and we value your feedback and share that with our presenters and helps us guide our programming and I'll also include that link in the e-mail that I send you so if you have to run back to the desk know that you can provide your feedback later. All right. 
Everyone have a fantastic day thanks to our support and our captioner as well and everyone have a fantastic rest of your week. 
>> Thank you.