In the Future

We are currently planning two important new dimensions to the YourStory project:

The YourStory Mobile

In an effort to preserve the stories of all Utahns—not just those who live along the Wasatch Front—we are planning to have a traveling YourStory-mobile, equipped with its own recording studio situated in a comfy parlor on wheels! Once we’re rolling, we’ll visit all the different areas in the state providing oral history training in high schools, libraries, and local museums.

During the first year of Storymobile travel, we hope to visit 15 sites from Roosevelt to Delta, Tremonton to St. George. In cooperation with junior high and high school history and English teachers in each location, we will offer two-day workshops in interviewing strategies and techniques, so that in the evenings the students can bring their grandparents or older neighbors to the Storymobile to record their own interviews with the help of our interns. Here, too, participants will walk away with CDs of the stories and photographs they have shared. These interviews may provide the basis for community exhibits in local venues as well as future exhibits at the Museum of Utah Art and History in Salt Lake.

Through a fostering of this kind of intergenerational sharing, the YourStory project will bring together the resources of the entire community and strengthens the fabric of family as these stories continually renew the values held dear.

YourStory, a Living Legacy

The YourStory Living Legacy Project at Huntsman Cancer Institute already offers patients and their families a chance to record their life stories on CD. In the future, we would like to be able to visit cancer patients in the comfort of their own homes. During the process of ’walking with cancer’ the opportunity to talk about their lives within a familiar setting and without the need to make another trip to the hospital would be particularly helpful to some individuals. Currently, we don't have the resources to make such visits possible, but in the future we hope they'll become an integral part of this important program. Increased funding will also allow us to produce bound books of these life stories that have been transcribed and edited for the participants. With the family's permission, each of these volumes will also be added to the Resource Library at the Huntsman Cancer Institute as well as to Special Collections at the Marriott Library.

Funding for each of these important projects is pending. If you or someone you know might have an interest in generously contributing to either of these outreach projects, please contact us right away. Your support and that of other caring individuals around the state will make these dreams of life story preservation come true.