What happens to your stories after collection?
The purpose of your project will likely determine your ambitions for what will happen after the collection of stories has been completed. You may plan to create an exhibition, creative piece, digitise a story collection or a range of other possibilities. Often this end output of a storytelling project is, however, time restricted. An exhibit may only last for a short time and even digital outputs can have a ‘shelf life’. It can, therefore, be important to ask – what happens next for the stories that have been collected? And is this important?
Asking this question at the start of the project can help to build in a viable and realistic sustainability plan for stories. This can be helpful as you move into the Curation and Creation phases (if relevant) but can also help guide the appropriate methods for collecting and storing stories for future use.
Questions to answer
- What are the future plans for the stories you are collecting?
Is preservation important to you (and others)?
Stories are part of our intangible cultural heritage and, therefore, preservation of these stories for future generations is often a desirable output from storytelling projects. Preservation does, however, come with a range of moral, ethical and logistical responsibilities.
While preservation is often seen an inherently good, people may value the role of preservation differently. For some individuals and communities, the preservation of certain aspects of their past and culture may not be desirable, especially where difficult heritage is concerned. As such, it is important to ask whether preservation is important to you, but also whether it is important for the communities being represented.
There are also logistical considerations where the preservation of stories is concerned. If the preservation of stories is important, for how long should this be and for what purpose? For instance, if the purpose of your project is to make all stories available to a wider audience through a digital platform for ten years you will need to consider the resources (financial, skills, time) involved in the design and maintenance of a web hosting platform. Alternatively, if you intend to store stories in a database after the project ends how will this be organised and secured for future use and access.
Questions to answer
- Is the preservation of stories an intended and appropriate output?
- What is the role of preservation? And what might the logistical considerations be?
What format is sustainable for collecting and storing stories?
After you have chosen appropriate methods to collect stories it is also important to consider which formats are appropriate to sustainably collect and store stories for future use. In this case, ‘sustainable’ means long-term, safe, retrievable storage of the collected stories.
For example, if you decide to collect stories through interviews or community workshops you may plan to record spoken stories or capture creative outputs from community members. How will you record and store these stories? Where will you save them? And how will you format them for easy retrieval and use in the future? Alternatively, if stories will be collected from the physical archives or printed version – how do you take copies and where are they stored? How are they catalogued to be easily findable? Will you digitise them?
Planning for the sustainable collection and storage of stories at the beginning of a project can help you to create resources that are easily accessible and usable in the future. If you plan to create digital resources, please explore our digital storytelling guide below for additional information on some of the key steps in planning for digital story collection and outputs.
Questions to answer
- Based on the method(s), you will be using for story collection how will you collect and store stories sustainably?
- What format will you store stories in?
- How will you ensure these are accessible?