Alexander W.G. Herd
3 May 2012 – Huron University College, UWO
War and Society and the Digital Humanities
Making More Than Memories: Legitimizing The Memory Project Archives for Historical
Education and Research
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the “digital revolution” has impacted both historical instruction and research in an ever-increasing number of ways. For example, the internet has proven itself as an effective means for the collection and storing of massive amounts of information and at one readily available source, such as digitized documents, audio- and video-recorded interviews, and other data. For the compilers of this information, the main challenge is how to make this data available and searchable for viewers. For history scholars, the major challenges are how to employ these online resources for the betterment of classroombased education and as legitimate elements for research projects. The specific case of the
Memory Project Archives demonstrates this instructional-research dynamic, with an added layer of complexity as the Memory Project involves the transition of a previously popular historyfocused digital source to one that can also serve the academic history community.
The Memory Project Archives,
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Canada’s largest online database of recorded military veteran interviews, illustrates the internet’s capability for the extensive archiving of historical information in a format easily accessible by a broad viewership. Consisting of approximately
2500 audio and/or video clips and transcripts of veteran interviews, the Memory Project draws on Canadians’ popular interest in the first-hand accounts of individuals who experienced combat.
In particular, most viewers are drawn to the veteran profiles from the Second World War, which form the majority of the database’s content. This popular interest represents the Second World
War’s enduring influence on Canadian society and its central position in Canadians’ collective
1 www.thememoryproject.com.
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Alexander W.G. Herd
3 May 2012 – Huron University College, UWO
War and Society and the Digital Humanities memory. Although the database includes Korean War veterans, the Second World War profiles remain the Archives’ critical mass.
From the start, the development of the Memory Project exploited the positive dimensions of the digital revolution. The main focus on Second World War interviews was a direct response to the lack of widespread interviews with Canada’s Great War veterans before it was too late. In
2009, the Historica-Dominion Institute formalized the online Memory Project: Stories of the
Second World War and the numbers of Second World War interviews exploded over a short time. Two years later, the project was extended to include Stories of the Korean War .
The methodology for the conduct of interviews and the publication of profiles has remained consistent over the past three years, although the emphasis on the content has undergone a shift. Originally, interviews were recorded by a Memory Project Archives team composed of individuals mostly with backgrounds in television and broadcast journalism. Since
2011, the team has been composed of military historians. Veteran interviews are primarily conducted in two ways, at “digitization events” or over the telephone. Digitization events are held across the country and refer to the scanning and photographing of veterans’ “artifacts” – military medals, photographs, and other documentation – that are included in the veterans’ online profiles. These events are held approximately once a month in different regions of the country and range from one to three days in length, with up to 25 veterans interviewed per day and mostly in English or French. The one-on-one interviews are structured as dialogues between interviewer and narrator. Although each interviewer has a list of possible questions, usually the discussion is generally free-flowing. Most of these interviews are audio-recorded, with some video-recorded, and are on average 45 minutes long. Telephone interviews are conducted
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Alexander W.G. Herd
3 May 2012 – Huron University College, UWO
War and Society and the Digital Humanities throughout the whole year with veterans who are unable to attend events or reside too far from an event locale.
Following events, Memory Project historians log each interview and select an audio or video clip for the veteran’s online profile. Clips are transcribed, fact-checked for historical accuracy, and clips, transcripts, and scanned artifacts are published on the website. Logging and fact-checking form the two critical academic elements behind the aforementioned shift in emphasis in the site’s content. As the Archives team has recently been formed of military historians, the information provided in the lognotes and transcripts takes on greater academic significance. With the lognotes, the team aims to set each interview in its broader context, providing details on the veteran’s military service – conflict, units, ships or aircraft or other vehicle – in an introductory section called “Overall Interview Notes,” rather than providing notes on the pros and cons of the actual conduct of the interview, aspects previously highlighted in this section.
The Archives team also takes a more historical approach to fact-checking – verifying transcripts through more empirical research than relying on popular, but often unreliable, websites such as Wikipedia. This is basic historical research, working through the historical facts versus the memories of a given personal account. Often this is a challenging process; the lognotes vary in quality of detail and as with other historical summaries, it is difficult to keep these documents objective as possible. Moreover, fact-checking has to be done in a manner that does not interfere with the original character of the interview clip. A further limitation has been the available time for the current team to undertake a revision of the lognotes associated with the hundreds of profiles published before 2011.
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Alexander W.G. Herd
3 May 2012 – Huron University College, UWO
War and Society and the Digital Humanities
Published profiles are searchable by veteran name or by several thousand tags. Some tags are assigned to broader categories, including conflict theatre, campaign, operation, and battle. The vast majority of tags are unassigned, the result of a system in which relevant tags are created and added to the appropriate profile. This situation has been particularly relevant to the
Korean War interviews, which have led to the necessary addition of new battles, locations, and other conflict-specific data.
The major question then, is how this website can be used as an academic research resource and educational tool in the classroom. The Archives’ utility for historical research must be based on widespread recognition of its existence and its content; therefore, like other programmes, projects, or institutions, the Memory Project must be publicly promoted. The promotion of the Memory Project’s veteran database potentially involves a lot of “slogging,” but the pre-established popular attraction of the website can ease this process. The nature of the work at the Historica-Dominion Institute has opened numerous doors into the public sector, including collaboration with domestic and foreign government departments and the media, and into the private sector with various cultural groups, who promote the Archives to their memberships. This process has a trickledown effect, not only as veterans’ stories are disseminated throughout their families and associations, but also throughout the academic community.
This public exposure results in a greater recognition of the Memory Project as one of the numerous cogent Canadian military history programmes, projects, and institutions currently on offer to the researcher. The next step is to generate collaboration between the Archives and these likeminded projects, including, as examples, the Canadian War Museum and the Laurier Centre
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Alexander W.G. Herd
3 May 2012 – Huron University College, UWO
War and Society and the Digital Humanities for Military and Strategic Disarmament Studies, and bolster the academic network of Canadian military history. This collaboration – at base, represented by links to each other’s websites – is beneficial to all participants, as one database leads to another and so forth, with researchers’ available online resources continually expanding.
All of this promotion and collaboration naturally sets the stage for the practical utilisation of the Memory Project Archives for historical research. As noted, as a result of a massive amount of available tags, research into the database can take literally thousands of paths. Like regular site visitors, researchers can start broadly with more commonly known terms from the
Second World War and Korean War, sorting information by conflict and then working through their options for more specifics. For example, a search for “Normandy” will turn up a solid number of profiles, while entering “Sherman Tank” will narrow down participants from armoured units.
Or researchers can browse particular themes that do not necessarily relate to a specific operation, campaign, or piece of equipment, but still have direct bearing on military history. For example, there have been numerous veterans – particularly of the Korean War – who have openly discussed post-traumatic stress disorder. Of potential interest is a comparison of how many Second World War veterans versus how many Korean War veterans reference PTSD. Or, perhaps of interest is an assessment of how Korean War veterans view PTSD and its effects on their post-war lives. Hearing Korean War veterans’ experiences with PTSD can potentially contribute to a larger study on PTSD and the Canadian Forces from that war to today.
The Memory Project Archives does include an Advanced Search more pertinent to historical scholars than general browsing. This search allows for the selection of multiple terms,
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Alexander W.G. Herd
3 May 2012 – Huron University College, UWO
War and Society and the Digital Humanities from name to training base to branch of service to events such as theatre, campaign, operation, and battle. Whether through general browsing or the advanced search, finding veteran profiles is only the beginning. The Memory Project offers free copies of full interviews, edited interviews, and lognotes. The Memory Project has already had a number of academic requests in this respect, including one for interviews with a large number of Canadian military doctors and nurses during the Second World War.
The Memory Project Archives’ use in the classroom has multiple possible forms. An instructor could introduce the site early in a term and have students sift through the hundreds of profiles and write weekly historical blogs on chosen media clips and associated transcripts, as means of familiarization with and critical analysis of the site content. Instructors can also use any number of the audio and video clips to illustrate points in lectures. Moreover, in-class discussion on any given transcript can generate reflective debate on the benefits and limitations of the information presented by the veteran.
Historical blogging and in-class discussions could pave the way for larger student assignments, such as research essays. Like external researchers, students could use the veteran profiles as one source among many, supplementing primary sources, books, journal articles, and other documents. Conversely, a research essay could focus on a group of profiles, categorized by any number of themes – for example, a particular unit or warship in a given battle, operation, or campaign. Students could therefore write a more traditional essay, describing how a group of profiles literally speaks to a specific event in military history, rounding out their story with other sources. Alternatively, students could critically evaluate a profile or a group of profiles in terms of historical fact versus memory, assessing the meaning of a particular event or experience for a
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Alexander W.G. Herd
3 May 2012 – Huron University College, UWO
War and Society and the Digital Humanities veteran and contending for the elements behind the differences between veterans’ perspective and the written scholarly record.
Whatever the chosen method for utilizing the Archives for research and in the classroom, it is important to recognize that the database has limitations as a scholarly resource. When the
Memory Project was first established, the recording and publication of veteran interviews were not subject to a high standard of historical professionalism. This is not a denigration of those who came before, but rather the reflection of the original intent for the website, which did not go beyond the massing of media clips and transcripts for online publication. The Memory Project’s content was not critically evaluated for academic purposes, but rather formed as another website for public consumption.
One consequence is that the quality of interviews is inconsistent. Of course, when interviewing a veteran, the interviewer is greatly helped by having a high degree of historical knowledge, particularly of Canadian military history. Throughout the last decade of the Memory
Project, this contextual knowledge has not always been on hand and many older recordings clearly missed on significant information related to events during the Second World War. With the introduction of interview training, this inconsistency has been somewhat resolved; again, this is not a perfect process and unfortunately there remain numerous interviews that are not up to scholarly standards. As with the issue of lognotes, there is generally insufficient time, personnel, and resources to undertake the extensive revision of full-length interviews and contemplate reinterviewing specific veterans.
These limitations, however, do not outweigh the numerous benefits the Memory Project
Archives hold for academia, which go beyond the aforementioned research and educational
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Alexander W.G. Herd
3 May 2012 – Huron University College, UWO
War and Society and the Digital Humanities elements. Notably, the Archives team interviews any military veteran who resides in Canada and as a result the database contains Australian, British, German, Italian, and South Korean veterans.
The Archives’ value as an online oral history resource is not limited to only Canadian interpretations of military history and scholars can glean these perspectives through a search of non-Canadian profiles from both wars.
Additionally, the Memory Project’s digital format allows for the hoped-for incorporation of interviews with NATO and UN veterans of West Germany, Africa, Cyprus, the Middle East, the former Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan in the near future. This expansion holds great potential for scholarly studies of the experiences of younger veterans. Although a large database of Great
War veteran interviews is unfortunately not a possibility, the Memory Project can make up for this deficiency by enabling, for example, interviews with personnel returning from Afghanistan.
The collection of these interviews will provide more recent perspectives on the Canadian participation in a conflict than previously possible and help create a foundation for future scholarship. Such an expanded project, in which veteran interviews ranged from the Second
World War to Afghanistan, would provide a sweeping overview of several generations of the
Canadian Forces’ history and hold the potential for a virtually limitless number of historical projects based on this data.
For most of the Memory Project’s existence, the Archives have been a popular destination for veterans, their families, and history buffs. The database’s popular usage subdues the critical fact that the Memory Project Archives contains a wealth of data that academics can use for legitimate historical studies. For the history researcher, the Archives allows for thousands of possible searches and the resultant information can be used to either supplement
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Alexander W.G. Herd
3 May 2012 – Huron University College, UWO
War and Society and the Digital Humanities other sources or serve as the focus of a project that, for example, centres on the construction of historical memory. The Archives’ utility in the classroom has similar dimensions; instructors can use the site to illustrate points in lectures and encourage essays and other assignments based on the Memory Project’s vast number of veterans profiles.
Conversely, the Memory Project Archives cannot replace traditional forms of historical research and classroom instruction. On the one hand, the Archives’ accessibility and content help meet the need of many contemporary undergraduate students for web-based learning; as the digital revolution continues to sprout new forms of social media, historical instructors should adapt their curricula to assist the variety of student learning approaches. On the other hand, while instructors look to create and/or utilize legitimate historical databases in their lectures and as part of courses’ learning objectives, these databases should be considered mainly complementary to the reading of primary sources, textbooks, monographs, and articles, many of which are available online. This contention has much to do with the aforementioned limitations of the Memory Project Archives, as the Archives, like any other historical source, must be evaluated for both their positive and negative aspects and weighed against the written record.
Only with this proper approach can the Memory Project Archives truly be considered a legitimate academic historical resource.
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