This article was first published in the September 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
When Dave Isay was 14 years old, he made a recording of an interview with his grandmother. Years on, after she died, he searched high and low for the tape, to no avail. Now 49, Isay still goes looking for the tape -- but his loss inspired StoryCorps, an organisation that Isay says seeks "to provide people of all backgrounds with the opportunity to record, share and preserve the stories of all of our lives".
Since 2003 it has collected more than 65,000 conversations in its StoryBooths studios in Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco. As well as equipment, StoryCorps provides a "facilitator" to oversee the process. The best dialogues are featured on storycorps.org and US National Public Radio. Examples include a mother interviewing her son's killer, and a conversation between two daughters and their Alzheimer's-suffering father.
Archived at the US Library of Congress, it is, according to Isay, "the largest single collection of voices ever gathered". However, those voices have tended to be American. Isay's new idea: a smartphone app to enable a more global outlook.
Funded by the $1m (£600,000) 2015 TED prize, it allows recording, processing and uploading of interviews from across the world. Now in beta, it has been downloaded more than 165,000 times, taking StoryCorps not only to new countries - including the UK -- but also to new places emotionally. "It's so intimate because people are recording in their bedrooms," Isay says. He hopes that in the future, automated transcription software -- or the crowd -- will help to make the massive cache of audio it produces more searchable. "It's going to become a valuable historical document."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
