Sharing the Past: the Library as Digital Co-Design Space for Intergenerational Heritage Preservation

This poster presents the “Intergenerational Participatory Co-design Project,” an interdisciplinary initiative at the University of Hong Kong for facilitating collaboration among different age groups to design digital historic preservation. This project reimagines the global challenge of aging as an opportunity to enhance cultural heritage when older and younger members of society share their unique knowledge and perspectives. Over the course of the 2019–2020 academic year, four mixed-age groups co-designed a variety of innovative digital products to support the preservation and appreciation of Hong Kong's historic culture. The guiding principle of the project was to engage the participants as co-creators of both their own learning outcomes and learning processes. The participants also had opportunities to develop skills with new technologies for documenting, preserving, and presenting cultural heritage. The University of Hong Kong Libraries served as the central space (both physically and virtually) for facilitating these activities, in partnership with the University's Sau Po Centre on Ageing, the Common Core program, and the Faculty of Education. This project can serve as a model for how libraries can support local communities to digitally embrace an aging society for enhancing cultural heritage.