If you attended the ICHIM07 Conference Reception, you may remember seeing a giant, green, ear-shaped, metal sign with a mobile phone number and the words “hear you are” stamped on it in the atrium of the MaRS Collaboration Centre in Toronto. [murmur], a documentary oral history project, created the distinct marker. And, for the past five years, they have been recording stories and memories and erecting similar signs in neighborhoods around the world. Anyone with a mobile phone can call the phone numbers on the signs to access at least one slice of geographically specific oral history while standing in or interacting with the very place the story inhabits.

[murmur] was first launched in July 2003 in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighborhood. Since mounting their first sign in the middle of the night (in hopes of avoiding the need to explain themselves to anyone in uniform), the [murmur] team has put up about 250 signs in 8 cities in 5 countries and collected around 600 stories, with the assistance of dozens of partners and a lot of volunteers. I understand that they have since learned that putting the signs up during the day draws much less unwanted attention.

Happy birthday [murmur] and congratulations to the project team and everyone who contributed stories and helped out along the way.