Living digitized archives for individuals and learning

Being a digital media developer/programmer who has worked with museums and other organisations on various projects, I have used media such as digital/digitized photos, films and audio clips/interviews, for the process, which has been collected from (often older) people by the museum/organisation for educational/archival purposes, often for use with schools.

I am also a researcher working on a project (and planning projects) that look at the ways in which older people use/do not use/could use digital technology. I am interested in looking at ways in which older people (who may have interesting memories) can be encouraged to create “living” archives of their own material, in order to have more direct links to those that learn from the material (i.e. the archives are written/uploaded by people who can be contacted and asked further questions, making something more of a social networking facility).

What motivates people to currently donate their time and memories for the purpose of archives and education? Will they want to personally upkeep it if permitted to via a social network? Will their continued (virtual) presence encourage learning and further inquisitiveness from students, and how will one manage decline and death, what impact will this have on those (potentially young people) that access the material? How would it be best, for students and researchers to search through the data, and browse it?

(Note, that I have omitted q’s more directly linked to older peoples’ use of digital technology from this post on purpose…)