SSRC Workshop

Goals for this Workshop:

1. Defining Oral History
2. Project Design
3. Ethical and Legal Considerations in Oral History
4. Digital Recording and Equipment
5. Interview Techniques, The Basics
6. Digital Preservation, The Very Basics

To be Continued Later…

1. Advanced Interviewing
2. Interview Processing (Notes, Organization, Metadata, etc)
3. Digital Preservation
4. Digital Access
5. Potential Outcome for Your Project

CLICK HERE to View the Workshop Agenda

CLICK HERE to View the Full Recommending Reading List

CLICK HERE to View the Full Presentation, or Scroll Down to View Individual Modules.**

**Special thanks to Steven Sielaff, Senior Editor and Collection Manager, at Baylor University’s Institute for Oral History for helping me construct this presentation.

This section outlines oral history as both a process and a product. This section also traces the historical and theoretical underpinnings of oral history as a discipline.

Recommended Readings:

For more on memory work and oral history —

Portelli, Alessandro. “What makes Oral History different.” In The Oral History Reader, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, 48-58. New York: Routledge, 2016.

For more on oral history and present-day subjects —

Cave, Mark. “What Remains: Reflections on Crisis Oral History,” In The Oral History Reader, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, 92-103. New York: Routledge, 2016.

This section covers the basics of oral history project design from selecting a project title to developing a project description to setting goals to anticipating administrative requirements to narrator selection and more.

Recommended Readings:

For an overview of project design and considerations —

“Introduction to Oral History.” Waco: Baylor University Institute for Oral History, 2014.

Document Examples:

Blank Forms:

This section covers the ethical and legal considerations like Deed of Gifts, oral history’s relationship to IRB, ethical interviewing, mitigating bias, and interviewing difficult subjects and more.

Recommended Readings:

For more on the ethics and bias in oral history collection—

Jessee, Erin. “The Limits of Oral History: Ethics and Methodology Amid Highly Politicized Research Settings.” In The Oral History Reader, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, 674-688. New York: Routledge, 2016.

For more on ethical issues in interviewing difficult subjects—

Blee, Kathleen. “Evidence, Empathy and Ethics: Lessons from Oral Histories of the Klan.” In The Oral History Reader, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, 424-433. New York: Routledge, 2016.

Sample Documents:

Blank Forms:

This section introduces digital recording best practices and high-quality recording equipment.

Recommended Reading:

For more on Usability and Archives—

Boyd, Doug A. “’I Just want to click on it to listen’: Oral History archives, orality, and usability.” In The Oral History Reader, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, 117-134. New York: Routledge, 2016.

For more on Digital Methodologies—

Video Introduction to Doug Boyd’s Oral History in the Digital Age: http://www.oralhistory.org/oral-history-in-the-digital-age/ Actual Website: Doug Boyd’s Oral History in the Digital Age website. http://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/

For more on equipment—

Website: Doug Boyd’s Digitalomnium website. http://digitalomnium.com/category/digital-audio-recorders/

This section introduces interviewing best practices and strategies, deep listening, and interviews as a co-production between the interviewer and narrator.

Recommended Readings:

For more on oral history methodology and interviewing strategies—

Yow, Valerie. “Interviewing Techniques and Strategies.” In The Oral History Reader, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, 153-178. New York: Routledge, 2016.

For more on deep listening in interviewing—

Anderson, Kathryn and Dana C. Jack. “Learning to Listen: Interview Techniques and Analyses.” In The Oral History Reader, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, 179-192. New York: Routledge, 2016.

For more on interpretive conflict in oral history—

Borland, Katherine. “’That’s not what I said’: Interpretive Conflict in Oral Narrative Research.” In The Oral History Reader, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, 412-423. New York: Routledge, 2016.

For more on contextualizing emotion and co-production of interviews between interviewer and narrator—

Bornat, Joanna. “Remembering and Reworking Emotions: The Reanalysis of Emotion in an Interview.” In The Oral History Reader, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, 434-444. New York: Routledge, 2016.

Sample Documents:

Sample Field Notes, Tape Log, and Project Abstract_Barbara Wooten (Breaking New Ground)

Blank Forms:

This module is dedicated to digital preservation best practices and essential metadata collection.

Recommended Reading:

For more on metadata and preservation—

“Introduction to Oral History.” Waco: Baylor University Institute for Oral History, 2014.

CLICK HERE to View the Full Recommending Reading List