History of the Archive
The archive project is piloted by Sacred Heart High School,
Kingston, Mass. In 1995, Sacred Heart history students conducted
interviews with family and friends on historical events that they
remembered or experienced. As part of the Public Interest Document
Server Project of the Software Engineering Research Laboratory
(SERL), University of Massachusetts, Boston, Professor George
Lukas, director of the SERL, and Professor Robert Morris, director of
the department's computer laboratories, provided access to the SERL's
computers and Interleaf 6 text publishing software to format the
interviews in book form. The result in 1995 was a published book
including more than 40 interviews spanning the decades from the
1920's to today. As a result of the success of that project, Professor
Morris suggested that the collection of interviews be published on the
World Wide Web as an example of a positive, educational use of the
Internet. He offered access to Interleaf's Cyberleaf software which
automatically converts wordprocessing packages to html - the
language of the Internet - and creates a web of hyperlinked documents.
He then suggested that an archive of oral histories collected from many
schools could be also established. He and Professor Lukas offered
Sacred Heart High School the opportunity to pilot the archive. Sacred
Heart history teacher, Walter Lucier, who initiated the oral history
book project, voluntarily serves as director of the archive. In that
position, he serves as liaison between the University and other schools
interested in joining the archive project.
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