Online Scrapbook Site Collects World War II Memories

Family history scrapbook company 1000memories will donate veterans' oral histories to the Library of Congress

IDG News Service — An online family scrapbook company in San Francisco, 1000memories, is collecting oral histories from World War II veterans in Yountville, California, to share with the Library of Congress.
(See a video of a World War II veteran sharing his photos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/networkworld#p/u/0/EZDUkiL8FEY)
The 1000memories site is designed to let families share historical photos, videos, documents, stories and other items about their loved ones. The idea for the Yountville project originated when 1000memories was beginning work on Shoebox, a free Apple iOS app that lets users scan old photos with a phone camera and share them on a Web page built to house their family stories. Shoebox was launched a few weeks ago and has been downloaded more than 125,000 times, according to the company.
Rudy Adler, co-founder of 1000memories, came up with the idea of interviewing people at the Yountville Veterans Home of California after he talked with his grandfather about his experiences during World War II. Adler believes it's important for families to talk about the past while they can.
"It's something you can do after dinner with your family and get people talking, and get all that content out of people's closets and into a shareable space," Adler said.
The Library of Congress is accepting the oral histories that 1000memories collects from the veterans, but the agency doesn't accept scanned photos for its archives, only original images. 1000memories hopes veterans will be more inclined to turn over their original photos after the pictures have been scanned.

By Kerry Davis