Steps to a Successful Memory Book Project—Part 2

(Read Part 1 of this post below, or find it here.)

Step 5: Using your theme as a guide, make a list of potential contributors.

Start with your steering committee. Send each member a worksheet (see the example below) in advance of an early committee meeting. Ask that they make a list of potential participants, including contact information and a bit about their background in the community or organization.

Participant leads include: 

• Your membership roster/mailing list
• Senior center: Offer to do a presentation about your project at your local senior center or retirement community. Prepare an announcement to be published in their newsletter.
• High school alumni: Ask if you can set up a table or display about the project at high school reunions.
• Local churches: You may be able to include an announcement in church newsletters.
• Participants themselves. Even after the project is underway, you will probably receive suggestions for other participants from those who have already received their workbooks.

Don’t forget to include people who have moved away but still have ties to the local community or organization.

Step 6: Create a workbook for contributors to complete.

An inspirational workbook is one of the key ingredients of a successful Memory Book project. When a potential contributor receives his workbook, you want him be excited and eager to send his stories to you. You also want the process to be as simple as possible. When a workbook is designed well with sharp images, clear, open-ended questions, and plenty of white space for writing, it is easier and more enjoyable for your participants to write their stories. Many participants will continue to add to their workbooks even after the project is completed.

In an early committee meeting, brainstorm subtopics to your theme. For each subtopic, make a list of open-ended questions which will elicit detailed memories from your contributors. Just as when interviewing for an oral history, your questions should not leave room for single-word responses. Instead of “Did you participate in school projects to help in the war effort?,” use “Describe some projects in which your school participated to help the war effort. Which projects were the most rewarding for you? Why? What did you like about the projects? What did you not like about them?”

You need only a handful of photos or other illustrations for the workbook. The best illustrations for the workbook are those which help contributors recall specific places, events, or people. In the workbook sample page at the right is a photo of a well-known lifeguard and swimming teacher in the community. We received so many stories about him that we made a separate chapter just about him in our final book.  


Other items to include in the workbook include: 

• An introduction, including a clear explanation of the project.
• A method for participants to share photographs and other memorabilia (In the project director's guide, Memory Book Projects, there is an entire chapter devoted to collecting and organizing images.)
• Biographical information form about the participant
• Release Forms: Get signed releases from participants to use their stories, photos, and other images, not only in the memory book, but also in future research, exhibits, broadcast, publication, or museum publicity. You cannot legally use any of their stories or images in publications or exhibits without these releases.

Step 7: Collect the stories and images.

When you send out the workbooks, do not give contributors too much time to complete them. You don’t want the books to be buried in a “to do” pile. Four to six weeks should be adequate. One to two weeks before the deadline, follow up with phone calls to those who have not turned in their workbooks. Remember, not all of your workbooks will be returned. Expect 20–30 percent of them to be returned, and then if you get 40–50 percent back, you will be delighted. Follow-up mailings and participant gatherings will increase the return rate. 

Step 8: Create your Memory Book publication, exhibit, or other end product.

Once you begin receiving workbooks, you can begin the process of creating your Memory Book. This can be the most rewarding and fun part of the project, but it can also be the most challenging. In all the Memory Books I have worked on, there has been an overabundance of material to include—and not enough funds available to publish it all. You must make judicious choices of stories and images—include something from each contributor and choose stories that are varied and interesting. Leave plenty of room for eye-catching images, but don’t turn it into a “coffee-table” book of mostly photos and few stories. 

When considering stories, select for:

• Uniqueness.
• Fitting the themes and scope of the project.
• Personal recollections of well-known community/organization/family events.
• A mix of humorous stories, touching stories, coming-of-age stories (if appropriate to the theme), sad stories, inspirational stories.

Sample bio entries at the back
 of a Memory Book. 

Make an attempt to use at least one entry from each contributor. This encourages more participation in future projects.

Consider taking the time to include a bio from each contributor in the back of the book. The Fall City Historical Society (Washington) even included a small portrait of each person next to their bio—a nice touch and one that family members and researchers will appreciate.

Once you have collected all these great stories, don't limit yourself to  just printing a book. Some other ways we have used the wealth of material are: 

• An oversized exhibit version of the book displayed in the museum.
• A children's book version
• A museum exhibit which included some of the artifacts that participants loaned. (See the exhibit announcement at right.) 
• A traveling exhibit
• Remembrance (educational) trunks 
• Bookmarks and Postcards to sell in the museum gift shop

Last Step: Celebrate!

To celebrate and publicize the publication of your book, invite some of the contributors to read their stories at a public reading. If you do not have a meeting space, ask your local library if you can use their meeting room. Be sure to have plenty of copies of the book available to sell!

All the information in this post, and 

many  more details, can be found in the 

95-page  project director's guide,  
Memory Book Projects, which can be 

purchased  in the Capturing Memories Store.

Steps to a Successful Memory Book Project

All the information in this post, and 

many  more details, can be found in the 

95-page  project director's guide,  
Memory Book Projects, which can be 

purchased  in the Capturing Memories Store.

Today and in my next post, I am sharing  the basic steps for conducting a Memory Book Project and I will include a few ”tips for success” along the way.  In the project director’s guide Memory Book Projects each of these steps has an entire chapter devoted to it which provides lots of details for making your project a successful one.

Step 1: Determine the theme and scope of your project.

If you are collecting stories for a widespread community or organization, it will be necessary to narrow the subject. In the first Memory Book project we worked on with the Long-Timers group of the Southwest Seattle Historical Society, we initially entitled the project “Memories of West Seattle.” Once stories started coming in, we realized that the scope of the project was too broad. Since we did not have the funds available to publish so much material, we narrowed the topic to only include the Alki neighborhood of West Seattle in the final publication. That was where the bulk of contributions came from. It was a difficult decision to make in the middle of the project, because we were concerned that some of the contributors who lived outside the Alki neighborhood would be offended. Fortunately, we were able to later utilize most of the omitted stories in a museum exhibit, 47 Voices Remember.

You walk a fine line between too broad a topic and one that is too narrow. If you choose a limited subject with little potential, you will be scrambling to collect enough material to make a book possible. While you are considering topics, keep in mind the number of potential contributors. The more contributors you will have, the narrower your topic should be, and vice versa.

Step 2: Form a Memory Book steering committee. 

The steering committee should be composed of people who are well acquainted with the community or organization and are highly motivated to see the project to a successful completion. Members should have knowledge of a wide range of community/organization members who can contribute valuable memoirs to the project. Tasks required of committee members include:

• Develop funding sources/grant writing
• Compose workbook questions
• Handle publicity
• Recruit volunteers to transcribe, write captions to images, assist elders in completing their workbooks, editing and proofreading, etc. 
• Coordinate participants: Locate potential participants; coordinate the dissemination of workbooks; send reminders to participants; retrieve workbooks
• Coordinate story selection and transcription
• Design/layout book or other end product, or work with book designer

Step 3: Determine the project budget and locate funding sources. 

Before beginning any fundraising, it is important to have a good idea of what your project is going to cost.  Include some contingency funds as well, in case your project outgrows your initial plans. In two Memory Book Projects we worked on, the number of stories and images that were collected far exceeded our original projection. The projects were almost too successful. Even after careful selection and editing, publication costs were more than we had planned. Fortunately, in both cases, contingency funds were available so that we were able to increase the number of published pages. It would have been disappointing to have eliminated some of the remarkable stories we collected just for lack of funds.

Exerpted  from  Memory Book Projects: Collecting Stories and Memorabilia

Step 4: Set up the project schedule.

The time required to complete your project depends on a number of factors. The first is funding. If you are applying for a grant, you may have to begin planning a year or more before completion of the project, depending on the grantmaker’s schedule.

If it is important for the project be completed by a certain date (to coincide with an annual community celebration or reunion, for example), you should add at least an extra month to the schedule.

Don’t box yourself in. The last month of the project is the most intense. If any part of the schedule slips, you will need to move the publication date back—or plan to spend some very stressful late nights during the last two weeks of the project. Believe me, I speak from experience when I say that this is not the most fun way to celebrate the end of a wonderful Memory Book Project.

A truncated suggested schedule from
Memory Book Projects: Collecting Stories and Memorabilia

In my next post, I will cover:

Step 5: Using your theme as a guide, make a list of potential contributors.
Step 6: Create a workbook for contributors to complete.
Step 7: Collect the stories and images.
Step 8: Create your Memory Book publication, exhibit, or other end product.

In the meantime, you can freely download the Table of Contents, Introduction, and Chapter 1 of Memory Book Projects, Collecting Stories and Memorabilia in the Capturing Memories Store.

Memory Book Projects

Capturing Memories has had the pleasure to be involved in many successful local history projects in which we helped collect and publish the shared memories of local elders. In each project, a customized memory sparking workbook was created and distributed to community elders. An overwhelming number of the workbooks were completed and returned to the historical societies. Community members also shared personal photos and mementos. The stories were transcribed, illustrated with the images, and published.

A few of the Memory Book Projects
published by Capturing Memories

 Capturing Memories would like to encourage other communities to conduct their own “Memory Book Project” and  have now published Memory Book Projects: Collecting Stories and Memorabilia, a director’s guide to the collection of community memoirs. This handbook provides detailed instructions for conducting a Memory Book Project—whether you are working for a historical organization, preparing a church or organizational history, or putting together a book of family stories.

For lots more information about Memory Book Projects and how we developed this blueprint for gathering community stories, click on the “Memory Book Projects” tab above.

OR

Download the

  Table of Contents, Introduction, and Chapter 1 here.

(.pdf format)

Memory Book Projects is available for purchase in both a hardcopy (printed) and a downloadable e-Book at my Capturing Memories Store.

Lifewriting in the New Year

Every January, at the beginning of the new year, interest in memoirs and family histories gains a resurgence. The “baby boomers,” those people born between 1946 and 1964, are now reaching their late middle-age years. They are becoming grandparents and beginning to review their own lives. The urge is strong to record our stories and pass them down to our decendents.

Whether you are recording your personal memoirs or gathering stories from your family or community, Capturing Memories can help. In this blog, I will share techniques for personal lifewriting as well as ways to collect stories from others in your family and community. I have also authored two books which you may find useful:

I will post details about these two books the next few posts.