Amanda Meeks, Author at Permanent.org https://www.permanent.org/blog/author/amandapermanent-org/ Nonprofit. Secure. Digital Archives. Fri, 09 May 2025 20:32:51 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://www.permanent.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/cropped-Permanent-Icon-512-32x32.png Amanda Meeks, Author at Permanent.org https://www.permanent.org/blog/author/amandapermanent-org/ 32 32 Behind the Scenes: Digital Preservation at the Peale https://www.permanent.org/blog/behind-the-scenes-peale/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/behind-the-scenes-peale/#respond Fri, 09 May 2025 20:31:17 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=8611 At Permanent.org, we believe that preserving community stories should be accessible to all. In this guest blog post, we spotlight a recent Byte4Byte internship at The Peale in Baltimore, where University of Maryland graduate student Nicolas Lizarralde helped organize and add metadata to their Out of the Blocks oral history collection. His work not only helped make these powerful community voices more accessible, but also provided The Peale with a clearer path toward sustainable digital preservation. The post is written by both Heather Shelton, the Peale’s Digital Curator, and Nicolas. Heather Shelton: At The Peale in Baltimore, community voices are at the heart of everything we do. Housed in the oldest purpose-built museum building in ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/behind-the-scenes-peale/feed/ 0 Organizing External Storage Media https://www.permanent.org/blog/organizing-external-storage-media/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/organizing-external-storage-media/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:19:03 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=8168 External media, including jump drives, external hard drives, and memory cards, are essential tools for storing files, photos, and videos. As we amass these devices over time, they can add to clutter and become disorganized.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/organizing-external-storage-media/feed/ 0 Welcoming TightKnit to the Permanent.org Community! https://www.permanent.org/blog/welcoming-tightknit-to-the-permanent-org-community/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/welcoming-tightknit-to-the-permanent-org-community/#respond Fri, 21 Jun 2024 17:48:45 +0000 https://dev.permanent.org/blog/welcoming-tightknit-to-the-permanent-org-community/ We are thrilled to share some big news with you: TightKnit is now a part of Permanent.org. This amazing in-kind donation of a web app platform is a first for the Permanent Legacy Foundation, and it’s a huge step forward in our mission to preserve and steward the digital legacies of all people. Let’s explore why our partnership with TightKnit is such a great match, what an in-kind donation means, and what are our plans for the future of TightKnit. Permanent.org and TightKnit, A Perfect Fit As a mission-driven organization, our members are at the center of everything we do and we’re delighted to welcome each and every member of the TightKnit community to the ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/welcoming-tightknit-to-the-permanent-org-community/feed/ 0 The Importance of and Opportunities for Community Archiving on Permanent https://www.permanent.org/blog/communityarchiving/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/communityarchiving/#respond Mon, 11 Mar 2024 21:48:36 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=6107 Permanent supports community archiving through our Byte4Byte granting program, which allows our grantees and partners to secure 100GB of cloud storage and intern support for their unique projects and efforts in this area.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/communityarchiving/feed/ 0 Gathering & Transferring Your Digital Materials in One Place https://www.permanent.org/blog/gathering-and-transferring-your-digital-materials-in-one-place/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/gathering-and-transferring-your-digital-materials-in-one-place/#respond Wed, 28 Feb 2024 18:20:46 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=6067 Transferring digital materials from external devices to a central location is an important step in getting your materials ready to add to your Permanent archive.  Here’s a step-by-step guide and considerations to help you through the process. Gather digital assets and make a list. Many people have digital files, photos, and assets in a range of formats, on multiple devices, and in various cloud services. You’ll want to gather any devices that have materials you want to transfer living on them, as your first step. This could include USB drives, external hard drives, memory cards, smartphones, or any other storage devices. Additionally, you’ll want to make a list of the other places you know your ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/gathering-and-transferring-your-digital-materials-in-one-place/feed/ 0 How to Build an Archive, One Story at a Time. https://www.permanent.org/blog/how-to-tell-a-story-for-your-archive/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/how-to-tell-a-story-for-your-archive/#respond Mon, 05 Feb 2024 20:05:20 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=5985 Why are stories important? Since the dawn of human civilization, stories have been created to help us make sense of the world around us. These stories captured anything from explanations of why the sun rose every morning to harrowing escapes from animal predators. Until written languages were developed and recorded onto sheets of papyrus or clay tablets, oral histories reigned supreme. Like a game of telephone, stories told orally from person-to-person are susceptible to change as people forget, embellish, or invent new parts to the story as they pass them along from person to person. Historically, not everyone has had access to sheets of papyrus or clay tablets to record their stories. In fact, many ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/how-to-tell-a-story-for-your-archive/feed/ 0 Public Archive Spotlight: The Talevi Archive https://www.permanent.org/blog/talevi-archive-spotlight/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/talevi-archive-spotlight/#respond Wed, 11 Oct 2023 21:04:09 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=5640 Announcing our first public archive spotlight Here at Permanent, we are continually inspired by the public archives we see our community create. They help remind us of the historical and educational value that the archives will have for generations to come. To celebrate the hard work that our members put into these archives, we’d like to announce our first ever public archive spotlight featuring The Talevi Archive. In the age of digital transformation, preserving family memories has taken on a new form. Where before memories were found in dusty photo albums or in stacks of aging papers, these cherished moments can now find a home on Permanent. One shining example of this is “The Talevi ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/talevi-archive-spotlight/feed/ 0 Staff Spotlight: Emily Sienkiewicz https://www.permanent.org/blog/staff-spotlight-emily-sienkiewicz/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/staff-spotlight-emily-sienkiewicz/#respond Thu, 27 Jul 2023 14:55:05 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=5448 We’re taking a moment to shine a spotlight on Emily Sienkiewicz, our Communications Specialist.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/staff-spotlight-emily-sienkiewicz/feed/ 0 Legacy Planning is HERE! https://www.permanent.org/blog/legacy-planning-is-here/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/legacy-planning-is-here/#respond Thu, 13 Jul 2023 14:39:12 +0000 https://dev.permanent.org/?p=5391 We are so excited to share our newest feature, Legacy Planning, with you!

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/legacy-planning-is-here/feed/ 0 Hello Mastodon, Goodbye Twitter https://www.permanent.org/blog/hello-mastodon-goodbye-twitter/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/hello-mastodon-goodbye-twitter/#respond Fri, 30 Jun 2023 21:16:49 +0000 https://dev.permanent.org/?p=5379 Our #TwitterMigration to Mastodon

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/hello-mastodon-goodbye-twitter/feed/ 0 2023 Share to Win! Giveaway https://www.permanent.org/blog/sharetowin/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/sharetowin/#respond Fri, 06 Jan 2023 19:10:56 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=5034 We’re giving away over $1200 worth of prizes from our partners; all you have to do is share with friends & family.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/sharetowin/feed/ 0 Sharing & Connecting Over Family Treasures with Lynn Busath https://www.permanent.org/blog/familytreasures/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/familytreasures/#respond Wed, 14 Dec 2022 16:39:29 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=4939 We are excited to shine the community spotlight on Lynn Busath, genealogist and creator of the Paxman - Moody Archive on Permanent.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/familytreasures/feed/ 0 Capture and Preserve Traditions with Your Loved Ones https://www.permanent.org/blog/preservetraditions/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/preservetraditions/#respond Mon, 12 Dec 2022 17:13:53 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=4932 When you save to Permanent, you'll be able to look back, year after year, on your shared memories and the people or traditions that made them so special.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/preservetraditions/feed/ 0 Celebrating & Honoring Indigenous Legacies & History with Rudy De La Cruz, Jr. https://www.permanent.org/blog/aitscm/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/aitscm/#respond Tue, 15 Nov 2022 16:31:53 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=4897 We are delighted to shine a community spotlight on one of our recent Byte4Byte grantees this month, Rudy De La Cruz, Jr., Director of the Texas Heritage Project of AITSCM.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/aitscm/feed/ 0 Writing Software That is Built to Last https://www.permanent.org/blog/writing-software-that-is-built-to-last/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/writing-software-that-is-built-to-last/#respond Wed, 19 Oct 2022 17:27:31 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=4877 We’re taking a moment to shine a spotlight on Liam Lloyd, our Senior Software Engineer.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/writing-software-that-is-built-to-last/feed/ 0 Making Permanent Pretty and Performant https://www.permanent.org/blog/making-permanent-pretty-and-performant/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/making-permanent-pretty-and-performant/#respond Thu, 18 Aug 2022 19:15:27 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=4791 We’re taking a moment to shine a spotlight on Natalie Martin, our Front-End Engineer. This post is co-written by Cecilia Krum, our Director of Engineering, and Natalie. Cecilia: Natalie Martin joined Permanent almost a year and a half ago with the intent to make the part of the app that you see in your web browser (permanent.org) better. In that time she has improved the security and reliability of Permanent, added new features, and open sourced the web application. When Natalie and I first talked about her joining Permanent, it was clear that she had strong front-end development skills and would be a phenomenal addition to the team. She had already been thinking about preservation in ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/making-permanent-pretty-and-performant/feed/ 0 Story Gathering: The Coming Together of Shared Memories https://www.permanent.org/blog/story-gathering/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/story-gathering/#respond Tue, 28 Jun 2022 21:46:39 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=4707 Which comes first, the photo or the memory?

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/story-gathering/feed/ 0 The Letter https://www.permanent.org/blog/the-letter/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/the-letter/#respond Thu, 26 May 2022 08:30:00 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=4519 Take an old letter, add some photographs, and create a place for family to share stories.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/the-letter/feed/ 0 Stories unfold in pictures shared https://www.permanent.org/blog/stories-unfold-in-pictures-shared/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/stories-unfold-in-pictures-shared/#respond Wed, 04 May 2022 11:00:00 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=4502 Where do family stories come from?  How do they come to you? Were they shared? Created by you? Or based on personal experience, researched documented fact, or maybe a piece of pure fiction? Or that dreaded gossip? With family stories, it’s been my experience that siblings, cousins and extended family may have completely different stories to tell, even if they’re about the same event, moment in time or an individual. Take my good old Uncle Bert and a beautiful old photograph  We all have different opinions about family trees and the like. Some people just don’t care about ancestry, others are slightly intrigued, and some are downright obsessive and enthusiastic. When I first shared a ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/stories-unfold-in-pictures-shared/feed/ 0 Can We Have Nice Things on the Internet? https://www.permanent.org/blog/can-we-have-nice-things-on-the-internet/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/can-we-have-nice-things-on-the-internet/#respond Tue, 26 Apr 2022 22:42:46 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=4520 Permanent.org exists for the preservation of your digital legacy, as you define it, not for profit.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/can-we-have-nice-things-on-the-internet/feed/ 0 Searching for Lost Stories Together https://www.permanent.org/blog/searching-for-lost-stories-together/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/searching-for-lost-stories-together/#respond Thu, 14 Apr 2022 22:57:29 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=4493 Inside every genealogist is a storyteller waiting to be set free When I first embarked on my family tree journey two years ago, I began with a faded Xeroxed copy of some extensive research done in the 1980s by a cousin, twice removed. With the family tree in hand, I dug around online for my ancestors. A name kept popping up, Myrna. It was her family name that was familiar to me, I’d seen it before. I reached out to Myrna, (as I do…) knocking on virtual doors, and low and behold we share 3x great grandparents.  Connecting the dots and finding context A traditional family tree is, in its purest form, names, and dates on ...

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