“I’m besotted with it. They’re calling it a “digital time machine” and, this being the age of Wikiality, anyone can contribute. What’s history? Whatever you pin.”

The Guardian

The problem

Local communities are increasingly divided and cultural participation can reflect this. Local and national organisations find it hard to bring together different groups in an engaging way.

Historypin is very much focused on community engagement using imagery to get people connecting through stories and locations. It made sense to The Brooklyn Museum to release our collection of images in a way that would enable and foster this dialogue.

Shelley Bernstein, Brooklyn Museum

The Solution

A digital archive that supports the sharing of local stories and photos.

I can’t believe I’ve met someone who’s met Elvis Presley and also carried Winston Churchill’s coffin. It’s made me want to ask my family to dig out all their old photos.

Tommy Underwood, age 13

So far…

4000+ cultural organisations using it
100,000+ storytellers, archivists and citizen historians contributing
350,000+ stories pinned to around 32,000+ projects in over 2,500+ cities.

Launch video from 2011:

Team

Historypin

Meet the team

Research

Massive Digital Community Archives in Colombia: An International Partnership Towards Peace

November 18, 2019

This chapter in The Routledge International Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites explores a partnership between the National Library of Colombia, with its national network of public libraries, and Historypin.org, a global non-profit that seeks to strengthen communities through local history and story-sharing. This project highlights: the potential role of cultural heritage organisations to make lasting social impact through civic engagement, methods for designing digital content creation and community engagement along with technical infrastructure, the democratising potential of placing the power of cultural narrative in the hands of many, and how a digital cultural project allowed us to reach an entire nation during an essential time of peace-building.

See other chapters in this book here.

Diego Merizalde and Jon Voss

Taking a User-Centered Design Approach with the US National Archives

July 14, 2016

Historypin began working with the US National Archives in 2014 to take a user-centered design approach to cultural heritage and develop a broad strategy of community engagement. With a focus on NARA’s Wartime Films, we’ve worked with leading curators and preservationists at NARA to begin reaching much broader audiences and increase awareness and creative reuse of the United States’ rich cultural heritage.

Jon Voss and Kerri Young

IMLS Focus: The National Digital Platform

July 23, 2015

On April 28, 2015, the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) convened library, archive, and museum professionals to, in the words of Maura Marx, IMLS Director, “advance a vision of easy, seamless and reliable access for all Americans to the digital content and services that will enrich and improve their lives.” Jon Voss represented Historypin on a panel about Linked Open Data and crowdsourcing.

Jon Voss

From Crowdsourcing to Knowledge Communities: Creating Meaningful Scholarship Through Digital Collaboration

April 2, 2015

In this paper, we share some of the findings of our Mellon-funded crowdsourcing research with Stanford University, with a focus on tools we found helpful in the process of identification, outreach, and collaboration with knowledge communities.

Jon Voss and Kerri Young

Historypin in the Community: 2013/2014

March 3, 2015

In the last couple of years, we’ve seen Historypin used to connect generations in Japan, to draw in rich life stories in Australia and even to inspire a mural in East London. These sorts of projects are at the core of our mission to build better local social connections through a shared sense of place and history.

Each case study gives you a brief glimpse of the people behind these projects and what they’ve achieved.

Breandán Knowlton

Leading in the Digital World: Opportunities for Canada’s Memory Institutions

February 4, 2015

Jon: “I was fortunate to be a reviewer on this important publication examining the future of Canada’s memory institutions, though the findings are applicable worldwide. The authors of the paper take a bold stance on what is necessary for leadership in the digital domain.”

by: Council of Canadian Academies

Jon Voss

Citizen Science and Mobile Phone Cameras as Tools for Monitoring World Heritage

November 1, 2013

Early research on a proposed project to combine citizen science techniques and photo gathering to examine and monitor the aging and deterioration of objects of cultural heritage. Published in Built Heritage 2013 Monitoring Conservation Management.

Jon Voss

LODLAM State of Affairs

April 2, 2012

Article on the community evolving around Linked Open Data in libraries, archives and museums.

Jon Voss

Radically Open Cultural Heritage Data on the Web

April 1, 2012

This paper examines how a cultural, technological, and legal environment is enabling a growing ecosystem of open historical data. Published on Museums and the Web.

Jon Voss

Pinning Reading’s History: Evaluation Report

March 24, 2012

Analysis of the social impact of Pinning Reading’s History, a project in Reading, UK, with data and analysis from the London Government Information Unit (LGiU).

Natasha Armstrong

Impact Infographic

March 23, 2012

Depiction of the social impact of Pinning Reading’s History, a project in Reading, UK, with data and analysis from the London Government Information Unit (LGiU).

Tori Flower & Kate Ferrier

The State of Intergenerational Relations

October 2, 2011

Infographic illustrating the growing inter-generational divide, the growing ageing population, and prevalence of loneliness amongst the elderly.

Tori Flower and Charlotte Heal

Comment

King’s Cross Story Palace

What is King’s Cross Story Palace? King’s Cross Story Palace is a two year project that tells some of the …

Using design to solve the problems of rural isolation and loneliness amongst the elderly

Lead Researcher Immy Robinson features in radio series The Fix, in which “12 of the country’s brightest young minds gather to solve difficult social problems” – this episode: rural isolation and loneliness amongst the elderly.

(Re)Introducing the Shift US Team

Since 2011, Shift has had a presence in the United States and has been growing since then. Originally located in …

Cultural Heritage and Social Change Summit: One Year On

This report summarizes some of the core findings of the Cultural Heritage and Social Change Summit–themes that have also arisen in many other cultural heritage conferences and meetings over the past year:

Safe Space for Disruptive Dialogue
Funding for Transformative Gatherings
Equitable and Ethical Collaboration
Diversifying Technology Production in Cultural Heritage Spaces
Integrating Community Archives Into Traditional Cultural Heritage Spaces
Social Innovation and Rethinking Goals and Objectives in the Cultural Heritage Sector

Jon Voss

What have we learnt and now what? Part ten of Connecting Well.

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the tenth in a series of blogs.

Beauty of Care: Part nine of Connecting Well

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the ninth in a series of blogs.

The Heart of the Matter: Part eight of Connecting Well

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the eigth in a series of blogs.

Relational offset, the new imperative: Part seven of Connecting Well.

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the seventh in a series of blogs.

Humbug or Hallelujah? Part six of Connecting Well

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the sixth in a series of blogs.

Joining the Dots: Part five of Connecting Well

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the fifth in a series of blogs.

Land of our children: Part four of Connecting well.

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the fourth in a series of blogs.

Doing what anyone would do: Part three of Connecting well.

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the third in a series of blogs.

Human beings being human: Part two of Connecting well

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the second in a series of blogs.

Connecting Well

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the first in a series of blogs.

Death by Social Media

Jon Voss runs Shift’s US operations, with a major focus on Historypin. Our deep intergenerational work has pulled us recently …

Historypin & LODLAM at EuropeanaTech 2015

This talk at the National Library of France from February 2015 highlights some of the ways Historypin is being leveraged to increase access to cultural heritage content and strengthen local communities. I also take a quick look at the growing culture around Linked Open Data in Libraries, Archives and Museums and how data sharing may soon be the new norm for cultural heritage.

4 Major Efforts to Share European Cultural Heritage

This winter has seen a flurry of activity around a number of projects related to Europeana content, and the incredible work of partners across Europe helping to increase the discovery and reuse of European cultural heritage.

Can One Story Change the World?

Jon Voss of Historypin.org presents “Can One Story Change the World?” at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia.

Society of American Archivists Keynote

Jon Voss, Strategic Partnerships Director at Historypin, during opening plenary of the Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting, August 9, 2012. This is audio of the talk together with slides.

Opinion: Considering SOPA in Cultural Heritage

I’m guessing you’ve already heard of the two bills that have been introduced before Congress in the United States, the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House…

Mapping in the 4th dimension TEDxNHH

Nick talks atTEDx NHH, hosted by the Historypin Norwegian School of Economics, in Bergen.

Funding Historypin

Sincethe launch of Historypin in New York July this year, we’ve been blown away by people’s response to it…

Smithsonian Institution talk on Linked Open Data

Jon Voss addresses the Smithsonian Institute and explores the fundamental elements of Linked Open Data and discover how rapidly growing access to metadata within the world’s libraries, archives and museums is opening exciting new possibilities for understanding our past, and may help in predicting our future.