Voices are bringing Keizer’s past to life through a new online oral history project of the Keizer Heritage Museum.

The museum’s Oral History Website features interviews with longtime residents, community leaders and citizens who helped shape the city’s identity and culture.

 “From early settlement to key civic developments, the collection captures Keizer’s challenges, milestones and proud moments,” the museum announced in a news release.

The interviews are presented on the Aviary platform, which makes audiovisual content searchable and accessible.

Robert Becker, Heritage Museum manager and president of the Keizer Heritage foundation, said making the oral accounts accessible was “a long-term goal of mine.”

He said he stumbled across the Aviary platform by chance.

“When I learned that the University of Oregon also uses it – and was able to meet with their digital services team – I knew I had found what we needed,” Becker said.

The platform provides high-quality transcriptions, indexing, powerful search capability and more, he said.

The topics so far touch on the 1964 flood, formation of the city of Keizer, the history of the Keizer Fire Department, history of the old Keizer Schoolhouse, creation of Keizer Station and more.

New recordings will be added regularly to the site, and work is underway to add closed captioning and Spanish-language versions.

To view and hear the recordings, visit the keizerheritagemuseum.org website or go to https://keizerheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/.

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