Voices of the Past Radio

“Who are you?” A simple question, but one that could take someone on the adventure of a lifetime. For Mike O’Laughlin of Irish Roots Cafe, it took him on a trip to discover his Irish roots and began his journey to help others find theirs using his books, blog, podcast and personal tours of Ireland. Today we join Bethany Frank as she talks with Mike O’Laughlin. Mike is going to explore the ease of podcasting and how he uses it to share connect folks around Irish heritage worldwide.

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Founded in 2009, The Archaeological Box is a media-rich website that incorporates features like Google Maps and podcasts in two languages. It also incorporates a store and professional accounts. In this interview with Matt Thompson, the site's founder, we're going to explore the concepts of content management systems, including Drupal, and what goes into supporting the site through social media.

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Today we're talking to Carla Schroer of Cultural Heritage Imaging. CHI is a small company based in San Francisco--the social media capital of the world--that's doing some interesting things through photography and photosharing through Flickr. They focus on rock art and technologies related to photography in heritage research. In this podcast, we'll explore how CHI is implementing its social media policy based on its strengths, priorities and available time.

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Today we have kind of a special show for you. Traditionally we try to promote independent bloggers who are talking about heritage online but this time, we’re actually talking about a very large governmental agency. And specifically I’m talking about the Library of Congress. Now I’m sure that you are probably aware of the Library of Congress’ partnership with Flickr and Yahoo, and sharing so much of its image catalog online. It’s been hugely popular -- seen by millions of people. We’re going to examine the Flickr partnership, how it started, and what lessons the Library of Congress has learned as a result of this partnership. Now I was fortunate to be able to visit with Michelle Springer and Helena Zinkham who are heading up the Flickr efforts there. And they cover a lot of ground in this podcast. They talk about issues of policy, what it’s like to work with a social media company when you’re a large government organization, and also, among the folks who are commenting on their photos and who are contributing data, how they're actually using that data, and getting it back into their system.

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Marion Jensen is something of a social scientist because he experiments with social services like Twitter to help put history into context. He is the founder of TwHistory, a collaborative Twitter project in which participants retweet historical events using original source documents in real time as they happened in history.

He also has an all-time classic blog tagline: “those who forget history are doomed to retweet it.” Marion is also an educator and author of several books. In this interview, you can hear just how passionate he is about inspiring connections to the past.

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John Leeke was videoblogging for nearly a decade before YouTube was even invented. And he was taking about heritage preservation. His "campfire chats" have created a community throughout the world and inspired countless folks to take up the preservation trades. In this interview, he talks about getting started in video blogging, the modern tools he uses, and why he's an active, if reluctant, Facebook user.

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When Lisa Louise Cooke's daughters bought her an iPod a few years ago, she was barely even aware of podcasting as a business. But that gift would go on to inspire one of the world's most popular genealogy podcasts. In this edition of the Voices of the Past podcast, Lisa talks about how she turned her passion for genealogy into a dream career. Plus, she talks about the unreality of starring in the reality television show "Texas Ranch House."

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On the edition of the Voices of the Past, we meet Greg Lemon. Greg originated the popular MythShow podcast. In this interview, he talks about the importance of the storytelling tradition, building a quality web presence around your podcast, and setting personal priorities with new media.

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Nina Simon, the blogger behind the popular Museum 2.0 site, talks about why she believes social media is the key to helping museums and heritage groups connect their constituents with their content. Among the topics covered are the time investment required for social media as well as how to use social media philosophies to better visitor experiences without necessarily using the web tools.

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When it comes to the protection of cultural resources for the long haul, conservators are on the front lines: providing hands-on TLC, whether it's in a museum or at the scene of a natural disaster. Now, a new group has formed to provide a support network for young conservators and newcomers to the field. Rachel Penniman is the chair of the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network. In this podcast, she discusses how the group is using the social web to give a voice to the next generation of heritage caretakers.

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