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114. Preserving History: Creating Digital Memory Books
In this month’s Resident Exclusive Tutorial, Tyler Jameson explores how technology is transforming the way we preserve and share personal histories through digital memory books. Whether you're creating a heartfelt gift or documenting a life story, these modern scrapbooks let you mix photos, videos, stories, and audio for a truly personalized keepsake. Tyler shares tips, top platforms, and ideas to help you get started with your own digital memory book.
What You'll Learn:
- What a digital memory book is and why it matters
- Real-life use cases: from anniversaries to retirements
- The top benefits: accessibility, preservation, and personalization
- Overview of platforms: Newlywords, StoryWorth, K&Kin, Memento Stories
- Step-by-step guide to starting your own memory book
- Budgeting time and costs for your project
Links to Mentioned Platforms:
Learn more about Tech@Home on our website.
Hello, my name is Tyler Jameson and I'm a resident technology analyst based out of York, Pennsylvania. Today we will be exploring how technology is helping us preserve history through digital memory books. This is important to talk about because these tools are changing how we share our stories for future generations. What is a digital memory book? A digital memory book is essentially a modern scrapbook. It can include written stories, photos, videos, and even audio recordings. These books are created using web platforms, mobile apps, or even some professional design software. Many people will also choose to print. Copies of their books as gifts or to display The beauty is really in the flexibility. Anyone can create one, and it can be as simple or as elaborate as you want it to be. What are the different use cases? You can create a life storybook to honor someone's journey, an anniversary gift filled with shared memories, or a retirement tribute with messages from colleagues. Birthday books are also popular. Imagine receiving a collection of heartfelt messages and photos from your loved ones. Each use case brings its own unique emotional value. I have touched on just four examples here of the use cases of digital memory books, but they are incredibly versatile and can fit almost any celebration or life event that you can imagine. There are three major benefits of digital memory books. That would be the accessibility, preservation, and customization of these books. Because they are digital, these books can be shared instantly and accessed from anywhere in the world. Special features like zooming and text to speech allow users with visual impairments to engage with your book. Physical scrapbooks and journals are very prone to damage, so having a digital copy ensures that no natural disaster like a flood or fire, could ever destroy your hard work. If you prefer the physical books, ordering replacement copies is usually quite easy through the company of your choice. Templates and guides allow for a quick start and can help you stay creative and avoid the infamous writer's Block. Changing styles at the last minute can usually be done in seconds using many of the tools we will cover soon. Multimedia integration such as videos, audio clips, animations and interactive elements are also available on some of these platforms. Now let's look at some of the most popular platforms available today. Each one offers different features, so pay attention because choosing the right one depends on your goals and the audience you wish to present to. Newly words. Newly words is great for group collaboration with multiple contributors. Newly words will help your contributors with reminders and automatic invites without ever needing them to create an account. Templates are offered for different types of entries so that you can get exactly what you need out of each person without wasting time on management. It even includes a timeline calculator to help you stay on track for the entire course of your project. This is ideal for many events like retirements or birthdays where many people will be working to create this book with you. StoryWorth StoryWorth focuses on solo storytelling. It will send you weekly prompts via email, helping you or the writer of your choice, uh, reflect and add stories consistently to make things even easier. You can also record voice messages on your phone. They can then be transcribed and edited into beautifully written stories with over 500 customizable questions. This was perfect for capturing your own or a loved one's life story without them feeling like a full-time author. K and Kin, K and Kin is designed for emotionally rich family storytelling. It offers several guided templates and questions specifically curated to the event that you choose. Each one of these themed paths like legacy, childhood, or relationships, can help you push your contributors into creating a cohesive book that doesn't become dull or repetitive. A private Family Feed allows you to share updates about the book and memories securely with each other as well. This platform is great for families who want to build a shared archive of stories, and there's even a unique cookbook option that fills up with family recipes and the history behind each of 'em. Memento stories, memento stories, supports more. Media options such as audio, video, and voice transcription to help you get your message down on the page. AI assistance is available to help keep you on track without getting you into the wrong area. It generates unique questions based on your life events, and allows others to submit custom questions for you to answer. It is also senior friendly with voice input and phone call options if you have trouble putting words on the page. This is a great choice for tech savvy families or older adults who want weekly guidance on their writing. This option is a little less popular than the very similar StoryWorth platform that we just talked about previously, but Memento stories contains a more promising set of features. Okay, so how can you get started when starting your memory book? You first need to choose a platform that fits your needs and contains all the features that you plan to use. Another tip is that you should begin early to give contributors time to submit their messages and photos. Then you'll wanna set a tone, such as funny, heartfelt, or nostalgic to give your contributors guidance on how to write their stories. Make sure to mix in, uh, good, healthy amount of photos, quotes, and stories for variety, and to make sure the book stays fresh. Always proofread submissions and the final book before ever printing or sharing a little bit of planning and editing at this stage goes a long way into making sure your book comes out. Perfect. Okay, so you want to expect probably between four and 10 hours of work for most of these platforms. Unless someone else, like a family or friend is taking the lead on this project Perfectionist, or those creating large, detailed books may need much, much more time. Now it's time to talk about cost. Pricing varies quite significantly between these platforms, but you'll wanna expect to pay about 50 to a hundred dollars for your initial story writing platform, and then a single printed copy. Additional printed copies can often be discounted down to roughly 30 to $80 each, depending on the quality of the book and the page count that you provide. Now that you've selected a creation platform and evaluated the cost, it is time to make a list of potential contributors and reach out early. Like I said before, it's hard to overstate the importance of this. They may need to submit a story, photo or a quote, and that can take a significant amount of time. For some people, this will slow down your progress quite a lot if you don't get ahead of it. Okay, so here are links to all the platforms that we just discussed. You can scan these QR codes using your phone to explore each one, or type in the website URL listed below, whether you're creating a book for yourself or somebody else. These tools will make it easy for you to get started. And then before I move on, feel free to pause the video here and explore your options. Okay. Thank you all for joining me today. I really hope you have been inspired to start your own digital memory book. It is a powerful way to preserve your stories and connect with others. Thank you very much for watching and have a great day.
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