I am mulling over the idea of creating a site to capture the stories of the elderly for posterity, and want to run it by you to see if you think the idea is worthwhile.
The site would be bilingual and would consist of a transcription of a story told by an elderly person about their life, and a translation into Japanese or English, whichever is necessary given the source language. Initially it would be freeform, but would eventually probably have different story categories.
I got this idea when listening to the stories of my girlfriend’s grandmother (Japanese and in her early nineties) and finding them fascinating, and wishing that I had them recorded so that I could refer to them later. I have also often wished that I could go back and listen to or read the stories of my own grandparents who have all passed on. I think this would be great not only for the site readers, but also for the elderly people who we often forget as we hurry through our busy lifes. It would give them someone to listen, and care about what they are saying. The site could also possible include sound recordings of the interviews. I would consider this if I were able to get a grant from someone to develop this site in order to preserve a piece of history.
Please comment now, and give me your opinions on this idea, and any suggestons you may have on how I could improve the idea. Just click the comment link below, and type away!
I appreciate it!
Well, it looks like the site is finally up and going again. It has been way too long. I hope that Johnny and I can jump back into publishing and create interesting content for the site that will keep visitors coming back. There are still a lot of improvements that I have in mind for the site, but I will first concentrate on bringing the site up to the level that it was at previously. If you notice any problems, error, etc. please let me know by commenting on any post in the blog. I will receive your message by e-mail, and really appreciate any heads up I receive. I would also be grateful if anyone has any ideas for how we could improve the site.
You may notice that the site runs slightly slower than it did, or perhaps it will be faster. I’m not sure, but you can try both versions by accessing this site at its temporary address of http://dd.t4ac.com and accessing the old version at http://www.dynamicduo.info . I would appreciate it if I could get some comments about which is faster as I will be pointing http://www.dynamicduo.info at the server the new version is on shortly. The new version of the site is running in my home office, and is quite a low spec server. However, I have complete control of what happens on it. (This is, of course, limited by my knowledge of the system.)
If a lot of people find that the new site runs slowly I may be able to consider upgrading the hardware or the internet connection whichever seems to be the bottleneck. User feedback is what fuels both our creativity in writing, and our desire to build a better site, so please keep the comments rolling in. If any of you are interested in the features on the way, and progress in their completion, I have created a development log for this site at http://dd.t4ac.com/devblog/
I hope you all enjoy the site, and I appreciate you taking the time to read it, and (hopefully) leave us some feedback.
