The Cookbook and the Record

A station screens its own old tape, and the room names the people, places and events on screen.

Draws on

Radio Ambulante Listening Clubs; Connection Infrastructure

Archive has

The tape, and a place for the answers: local knowledge is the metadata machines can't supply

First step

One screening. Post the corrections within a week, then show the room.

Watch for

Consent before naming people on screen

Human meeting notes link to video timestamps, and archive transcripts cover the meetings nobody attended.

Draws on

The documenter role; City Bureau's Documenters program (from general knowledge, not checked for this brief)

Archive has

Meeting video at national scale, transcripts in progress, and a map of about 21,000 local governments

First step

A conversation about one city both cover

Watch for

Their notes are their editorial product. Link to them, don't absorb them.

"Every time council discussed this, 2012–2026," packaged as a kit a resident team can use.

Draws on

Community Research Teams; LAist Promise Tracker; Making Power Visible, the cookbook's rarest pattern

Archive has

Transcripts, agendas and name-variant search, which finds officials even when speech recognition misspells them

First step

One city, one topic, one search page

Watch for

Machine transcripts read as quotations. Always link to the video.

Every mention of one street or building across years of hearings and local programming, gathered for a display.

Draws on

Place as Canvas; Westminster Stories; Greene Street

Archive has

Decades of hearings and community shows for many towns

First step

A place under development pressure, in a town with deep coverage

Watch for

Permit packets include home addresses. A privacy review is required.

A standing rule: when disaster strikes, the affected towns' channels move to the front of the archiving queue.

Draws on

Crisis Activation ("prepare during calm"); Boulder Reporting Lab; Sandy Storyline

Archive has

A place-to-channel map, a download queue, and a known weak spot: emergency meetings are often livestream-only

First step

Write the rule, then test it on paper against the Marshall Fire weeks in Boulder

Watch for

Too much download traffic landing on a few machines at once

"Which meeting decided this?" becomes a reference service, run by librarians and built on the archive.

Draws on

Navigation Networks; Community Help Desk; the cookbook's section for librarians

Archive has

The record, but no library partner yet

First step

One public library in a town with a deep collection

Watch for

Answer by pointing to the record, not interpreting it

Take the archive's existing stories to the civic-media network in that network's own vocabulary, and recruit volunteers there.

Draws on

Communication Infrastructure Theory's "local media" storyteller; the amplifier role

Archive has

A finished guest post and conference session drafts, written so far for community media audiences

First step

A short note to the working group, with a link to this page

Watch for

The order of pitches, since the guest post isn't published yet

"Would participants do this without you?" becomes the measure of the volunteer program, in place of sign-up counts.

Draws on

Worksheet 3, the Impact Tracker

Archive has

A stated goal of handing the archive to a community, not closing it down

First step

Rewrite the volunteer roles starting from what a town wants from its tape

Watch for

Roles that serve the pipeline and call it participation