LOCALadk Magazine

22 Winter 2019 LOCALadk Magazine LOCALadk Photo of Jim Goodwin I learned to love hard walks in the Adirondacks well before fifth grade, trekking to High Peaks summit views ever y sum- mer. But as a bookish 10 -year-old, the stroll from Keene Cen- tral School down Market Street to Lu Brown's house scared me more than the face-first dive down a granite slab on Hay- stack that left me with eight stitches. I was there on assignment, dispatched to inter view a lo- cal elder for a social studies lesson. Mrs. Brown patiently answered my mumbled questions, a nonagenarian guiding me through her 43 years as a music teacher in the valley. No scratchy tape or crumpled essay sur vives to help me summon details. I'm left with a memor y of the sim- ple awe at how one person's stor y, told in her own voice, placed her existence within a vibrant community decades in the mak- ing. That feeling comes back when I tune in to Adirondack Community: Capturing, Re- taining, and Communicating the Stories of Who We Are. A project of the Keene Valley Librar y, Adirondack Community collects and organizes three- to five-minute audio stories, plus related photographs, from Town of Keene res- idents and visitors through an online platform in order to share our rich social and cultural histor y. Launched in June 2019, the project has collected 147 stories from 117 stor ytell- ers, all available to hear at myadirondackstor y.org. Just don't call it an archive. That's a physical place where public records, manuscripts, letters, reports, and news clip- pings are stored. The Keene Valley Librar y's archives were established in 1921; nearly a centur y later, this cache of his- torical evidence numbers 6,000 photographs, 600 rare and limited edition volumes in a dedicated "Adirondack bibliogra- phy," plus newspaper clippings, original artwork, maps, and ever y single Keene Central School yearbook. However, it's only open to the public 14 hours a week this winter. There are also hours of audio tapes—but outdated technology and lengthy inter views means they remain mostly unstudied. And because materials are rare and delicate, they cannot leave the secure room where they are stored. If I want to get my hands on histor y, I have to get myself to the archives during open hours. That was easy when I was a KCS student and teachers scheduled class visits. As an adult I've managed two visits in 15 years. Then how to engage people with local histor y? Put it on the Internet, accessible no matter where you are or what time it is. That's the vision behind Adirondack Community, brought into focus over two years by Librar y Director Karen Glass and Volunteer Grants Manager Jer y Huntley. Interested citizens attended focus groups in 2018 to discuss potential categories and suggest stor ytellers. Then Hunt- ley, a semi-retired seasonal resident and full-time dynamo, secured multi-year funding through grants from Humanities New York, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Glenn and Carol Pearsall Foundation; the Northern New York Librar y Network; and private dona- tions. In 2020, Huntley will deliver a project manual and train- Local History Project Bridges the Generational Communication Gap: At the Keene Valley Library, volunteer storytellers record first-person narratives for an online collection designed to deepen community ties. By Olivia Dwyer Photos Provided Wild Work Farm

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