A project to record the memories of residents in King County, WA—particularly Asian Americans displaced during World War II—is set to begin soon.

King County Library System (KCLS), which includes 49 libraries and serves about 1.6 million people, was awarded an $800,000 Mellon Foundation grant in December 2023. The grant money will be used to hire a staffer to oversee a project that will create memory labs at two different locations: Bellevue Library, which serves the northern part of the county and is to the east of Seattle, and Federal Way Library, which serves the southern part of the county and is northwest of Tacoma.

Both libraries already have makerspace areas where patrons can learn electronics and coding, crafts, robotics, and recording. They also house equipment for the digitization and preservation of media such as VHS and vinyl albums as well as photos.

Ian Chapman, library and information services manager for KCLS, said that the library system is hoping to hire the person who will be tasked with making these memory labs a reality as early as the first quarter of this year. That person will work with makerspace staff, librarians, and others to “empower members of the community to record and preserve their stories. We want to take the time to look at our internal capacity and build out our connections and make sure we’re listening to our communities in terms of what stories need to be captured.”

Chapman said that the person in charge of the memory labs will decide how the project will be organized and executed. “It’s a great opportunity,” Chapman added. “The memory lab librarian is really going to oversee and drive a lot of this work.”

The memory labs will be focused on audio capturing with an eye toward collecting the oral histories into an exhibit and perhaps a bound collection of photos and stories by 2028. The projected five-year project will be looking in particular for stories from Asian Americans about their experiences during and after World War II, as well as the experiences of their descendants.

Chapman said that the library system serves a large minority population, with about 40 percent of the population in the Bellevue area being Asian or Asian-American. The library system also has a large immigrant and refugee population, he says, and it is largely served by five welcoming centers. Those welcoming centers provide in-person ambassadors and resources for newcomers to the area and help connect them to local service providers.

The memory labs will capture stories from these new locals as well as those who have been in the area for decades and want to share their oral histories. “There was a huge amount of displacement (in the area) around World War II,” Chapman said, “We wanted to focus on capturing stories of those who were displaced and the effects on their descendants, including what the [generational] impacts are.”

In addition to the two locations where people will be able to come in and record their stories, King County will also be looking at ways to take this service out into the community. Chapman said the new memory labs staffer will be tasked with finding ways to record stories outside the walls of the libraries as well.

To that end, KCLS will be working with StoryCorps, which has experience in capturing oral histories across the country. It’s the first time the library has partnered with that organization, and Chapman noted that one reason for the partnership is that StoryCorps has experience in building out narratives that will be preserved long-term.

“We’re excited to learn from them as an organization that has so much experience with this work. They also have a relationship with the Library of Congress in terms of storing their collections,” he said. “We want to make sure we have a durable home and we can keep this history alive.”