Monday, June 09, 2008

Nice job Statesman

Kudos to the heads-up Idaho Statesman front desk personnel for recognizing that Eusebio Arriaga’s remarkable life story deserved much more than a cold obituary draft and for calling Tim Woodward to help.

A further step Mr. Arriaga might consider taking (if he has not already yet done so), is to share his interesting narrative, by recording it orally with one of Idaho Regional Historians. As I started writing this, the Statesman ran an in-depth story about oral history programs, where they recommend several ways of participating in these.

It would also be nice to see libraries and historical societies link their websites in better with those of local newspapers and vice versa. For instance, when a writer tells a remarkable story such as Mr. Arriaga’s, readers who are curious to discover more, could link directly into a regional history database.

A way for the Statesman and other newspapers to continue to be innovative, in our fast-paced information age, would be to direct special project managers to develop working relationships with regional library historians and other oral history program leaders.

Which Idaho newspapers will be the first ones to start linking in better with our various oral history programs?

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