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The Queens Memory Project is a community archiving program which aims to record and preserve contemporary history across the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle ...

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

Community archives Community archives are archives created or accumulated, described, and/or preserved by individuals and community groups who desire to document their cultural heritage based on shared experiences, interests, and/or identities, sometimes without the t ...

are created in response to needs defined by the members of a community, who may also exert control over how materials are used. The project is a collaborative effort between

Queens College, City University of New York Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...

and

Queens Public Library The Queens Public Library (QPL), also known as the Queens Borough Public Library and Queens Library (QL), is the public library for the borough of Queens, and one of three public library systems serving New York City. It is one of the largest lib ...

that was initially funded in 2010 through a grant from the

Metropolitan New York Library Council The Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) is a non-profit organization that specializes in providing research, programming, and organizational tools for libraries, archives, and museums in the New York metropolitan area. The council was f ...

(METRO). Materials in the archive are made accessible to the public through a website which contains

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people w ...

interviews and photographs documenting the lives of Queens residents. The stories and images are presented alongside digitized historical photographs, maps, news clippings and other archival records. The goal of the project is to allow visitors to the site to view otherwise scattered archival materials and personal stories in a searchable database of collective memory representing the borough of Queens.

History

The archive began in June 2010 as an independent study for project director and archivist Natalie Milbrodt, then a Special Collections and Archives Fellow in the Queens College Libraries and a master's degree candidate in the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. Focusing on the neighborhood of

Flushing Flushing may refer to: Places * Flushing, Cornwall, a village in the United Kingdom * Flushing, Queens, New York City ** Flushing Bay, a bay off the north shore of Queens ** Flushing Chinatown (法拉盛華埠), a community in Queens ** Flushing ...

, Milbrodt conducted oral history interviews with 20 residents in the Waldheim neighborhood, a small area less than a mile from downtown Flushing. A grant from the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) enabled her to establish collaboration with Queens Public Library to combine archival materials from their holdings relevant to Queens history with those of Queens College. The website for the Queens Memory Project was later developed by software firm Whirl-i-Gig and officially launched to the public on October 27, 2011. The site combines digital audio of the project interviews with images and other digital content from the collections. Development of the Queens Memory Project since 2011 has focused on expanded documentation across the borough of Queens, collaboration with educators, scholars, artists, and community groups. Future development will incorporate Web 2.0 technology to allow direct user contributions.

Training

The Queens Memory team offer
weekly trainings
for new volunteers and those interested in conducting oral history interviews. These trainings are free and intended to empower Queens residents to create high quality additions to local history collections at Queens Public Library.

Oral histories

The collection contains over 500 individual oral history interviews from residents of Queens. Nearly all of these interviews were conducted by volunteers who received training from Queens Memory Project staff working at Queens Public Library or Queens College CUNY. Many of these interviews are availabl
online
with transcriptions.

Podcast

The Queens Memory Project has produced a journalistic podcast since 2019 that often features the voices of Queens residents. Its first season covered the state of immigrants in Queens. Its second season is focused on life in Queens during

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...

and won a

Third Coast International Audio Festival The Third Coast International Audio Festival (TCIAF or TCF), based in Chicago, curates audio stories from around the world and showcases them in various mediums. It is informally referred to as the "Sundance of Radio". The festival was affiliated ...

award. Its third season is titled "Our Major Minor Voices" and is composed of bilingual episodes featuring the real voices of Asian Americans in Queens.

Wild Sound recordings

Wild Sound recordings are audio recordings that document events and public places in Queens. The recordings are in digital WAV format.

Photographs

Digital photographs donated by Queens residents are included in the project's collections. Digital images are stored in

TIFF Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word processin ...

format.

Ephemera

Other items in the Queens Memory Project archive include digitized maps, news clippings, and other

ephemera Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...

. Digital images are stored in TIFF format.

References

{{Reflist

External links

The Queens Memory website

Queens College Special Collections and Archives

Archives at Queens Library
Internet properties established in 2011 Oral history History of Queens, New York Queens Public Library 2011 establishments in New York City