About Hong Kong Memory

Hong Kong Memory (HKM) is a multi-media web site that gives free and open access to digitized materials on Hong Kong’s history, culture and heritage. The materials include text documents, photographs, posters, sound recordings, motion pictures and videos.

HKM is Hong Kong’s response to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme which calls for the preservation of valuable archive holdings and library collections all over the world through digitization to guard against collective amnesia.

Leisure and Cultural Services Department

Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust

Objectives

   •   To preserve Hong Kong’s historical and cultural heritage by means of digitization;

   •   To consolidate dispersed sources of local historical and cultural heritage;

   •   To ensure convenient and global access to valuable historical and cultural heritage;

Vision

   •   To share, evoke and articulate Hong Kong people’s memories

   •   To enrich Hong Kong people’s sense of place

   •   To enrich the younger generation’s sense of history and enable them to connect with the past and think of the future

   •   To enrich the world’s understanding of Hong Kong by presenting its many different faces

   •   To facilitate learning – including lifelong learning -- and research at different levels

   •   To facilitate community participation and enhance the sense of community

   •   To provide a new paradigm for digital archives/libraries/museums

Three main aspects of Hong Kong Memory (HKM)

1. Collections. HKM acts as a depository of source materials in different media. The materials are organized into Collections by subject under four broad themes.

   
   

   
   

   
   

      •   History and society

   
   

      •   Geography and Environment

   
   

      •   Art and Culture

   
   

      •   Communication and Media

   
   

   Collections may be browsed individually, searched individually or searched across multiple Collections.

   
   

2. Exhibitions. HKM curates Exhibitions to showcase materials and enhance interest among users. Exhibitions are formed with materials selected from one or more Collections and organized around a topic or a story.

   
   

3. Oral History. A key component of the website is the Oral History Collection which gathers materials about people’s lived experience and memories. It provides a space for people’s “voices” to be articulated and heard.

Hong Kong Memory is built on wide collaboration. In 2006, the Centre of Asian Studies of The University of Hong Kong, which was then renamed the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (incorporating the Centre of Asian Studies), was commissioned by the Hong Kong Jockey Club to develop the Hong Kong Memory Project.

The Working Group. A Working Group was formed between 2007 and 2011, comprising experts who advised the HKU Project Team on the project’s development.