Oral History and Documentary History
Applications in Library and Information Science
Marija Dalbello
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
dalbello@scils.rutgers.edu
www.scils.rutgers.edu/~dalbello
Introduction
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content creation in DL context (memory institutions)
memory institutions shape the historical record
documentary history (artefacts, documents) traditionally considered
basis for forming historical memory
 oral history (eyewitness accounts: recorded, transcribed) alternative
method of generating documents about historical experience
 oral collection of historical material: history, theory, methodology,
“how to”
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current applications and trends
projects using digital library technology and oral history methods to
explore new ways of collecting and highlighting existing collections
 tools for DL development
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Outline
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Oral History and Historical Research
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Doing Oral History
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Historical Concepts in Digital Library Settings
(Oral History Projects)
DL Tools & Technology Infrastructure
“He lived a useful life.”
An inscription from a late 18th century tombstone inside a church in lower Manhattan. Similar
sentiments do not grace Victorian gravestones. These “remember” the deceased with “love.”
Oral History:The Story of Lived
Experience
purpose
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Oral history illuminates the experience and
historical contribution of ordinary people
Oral history provides insights into everyday life
experience
Oral history is a way to reach groups and
individuals who have been ignored, oppressed,
and/or forgotten
Oral history captures personal accounts
(autobiographical, life stories)
Oral History Research
tradition
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(1934/1966) Lomax & Lomax (ballads and folk
songs)
(1948) Oral History Project (Allan Nevins,
Columbia U)
(1975) Studs Terkel: Working: People Talk About
What They Do All Day and How They Feel About
What They Do
(1980s) Feminist studies of the social / personal
meanings of women, their work, experience, life
Oral History is art, science, and
craft
definition
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A qualitative research process based on personal
interviewing, suited to understand meanings,
interpretations, relationships, and subjective
experience
and
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A product: an audio or video tape recording, that
is an original historical document, a new primary
source for further research
(Source: “Oral History Workshop on the Web” (http://www3.baylor.edu/Oral history/Whatis.htm)
Historiography
Oral History

Documentary History conventional written historical
narratives
 reconstruction
and interpretation; completeness
 focus on written documents, artefacts

Oral History oral traditions and other personal narratives
capturing “the structure of feeling” of everyday life (Williams 1977)
 broad-based
information & large-scale projects within
meaningful historical framework
 interviews with eyewitnesses of events
 areas of application diverse: academic, government,
libraries, museums, medical and military settings
 sharing information with the larger community
(publications and programs)
Historiography
Oral History
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Structuralist approach: assumptions of an era
(an époque) are inscribed and embedded in
(documentary or lived) texts, as parts of webs or
systems of signification. Any particular text can be
analyzed in relationship to other texts, as a
structure of meaning.
Cultural theory interpreting practices as
representations of social relationships.
Postmodernist theories see both written
documents and mundane activities as ‘texts.’
Oral History as Text
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Oral tradition
oral traditions, memory & history
anonymous, functionally modified for memory as channel of
transmission (mnemonic, homeostatic, performative, not reliable)
 Vansina
(1961)
 Ong (1982)
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Public Memory
impacted by processes of cultural and social memory; memory
shaped by personal interest and public institutional contexts
(heritage not history)
 Lowenthal
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(1998)
Fentress & Wickham (1991)
Passerini (1987; 1992; 1997)
Oral History
limitations as method of access to the past
Personal or public history?
Are we collecting or crafting collective memory?
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We are discovering voices and empowering them,
but...
Who speaks for history?
From whom do we want to hear?
Why do we want to hear them?
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We are collecting memory and placing the voices
historically but ...
Whose voices do we want to privilege?
Oral History Research
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How reliable is oral history?
dilemmas
What can we learn form oral history that cannot be found in written
historical documents? How does the oral, retrospective character of
oral narratives influence their content?
Do interviews consist of records of what actually happened in the
past? Or are they shaped memories of the individuals who narrate
them?
How does the presence of an interviewer influence the final
product?
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Can oral history help democratize the reconstruction of history?
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What is the role of libraries in maintaining that record of the past?
Oral History Project
Doing Oral History: Planning & Project Management
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discovering voices
collecting memories
situating & recovering voices
crafting collective memory
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Exercise 1: Project planning
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Oral History Project
Doing Oral History: Planning & Project Management
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Stage 1: identify general subject
Stage 2: justify why recovering particular voices
Stage 3: plan for funding & organizational
support
Stage 4: identify context for dissemination;
project evaluation (ethical, legal concerns)
before you start: 20 questions checklist
after you start: 5 strategies (advisory board,
goals & priorities, project guidelines, staff,
budget )
Oral History Project
Doing Oral History: Interview
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unstructured interview techniques;
consideration of legal issues; project
management
Veterans History Project (Library of Congress).
"Project Kit: Interviewing and Recording
Guidelines” (http://www.loc.gov/folklife/vets/guidelines.html)
“Oral History Workshop” (Baylor University.
Institute for Oral History) (http://www3.baylor.edu/Oral
_History/Workshop.htm)
Oral History

Interview
Oral History Project
Doing Oral History: Interview
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unstructured interview / field techniques:
introductory announcement; prepare questions before
the interview (write them down)
open ended questions; short; don’t begin with painful
topics; follow-up questions
give interviewee time for reflection
ask interviewee to show you photographs, personal
letters as a way of enhancing the interview (encourages
memory and provokes interesting stories)
bodily cues rather than verbal
Oral History Project
Doing Oral History: Interview
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legal and ethical considerations:
never record secretly
 be yourself: don’t pretend you know more about a subject
than the participant
 prepare release forms
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recording & technology specifications:
90 minute per subject
 tape or video; self-standing microphone; standard speed
only; test equipment beforehand; quiet setting
 focus on face, upper body when recording

Oral History Project
Doing Oral History: Interview
Sample Interview Questions (V / Civilians):
 Segments of the interview
Civilians: For the Record, Jogging Memory, Wartime Work,
Life During Wartime, Postwar Experiences, Closing
Questions
 Veterans: For the Record, Jogging Memory, Experiences,
Life, After Service, Later Years and Closing
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Use questions but let participant tell his/her own
story
Biographical Data Form in advance
Prepare yourself
Oral History Project
Doing Oral History: Post-Interview
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Evaluation
 Oral
History Association, “Oral History Evaluation
Guidelines,” Pamphlet No. 3 (1989; rev. 2000)
(http://www.dickinson.edu/organizations/oha/EvaluationGuid
elines.html)
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Transcription, Editing, Historical Presentation,
Publication
 Veterans
History Project (Library of Congress).
"Project Kit: Transcribing and Indexing Your
Interviews"
(http://www.loc.gov/folklife/vets/transcribe.html)
Oral History (DL)
The “Living Library”: Examples
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memory institutions actively engaged in reconceptualizing historical narrative (public
libraries, museums, archives)
“the living library”: engaging community
memory with existing collections
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preservation of local knowledge, record of
everyday experience, “knowledge
management” in the local environment
Oral History (DL)
The “Living Library”: Examples
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“Bridgeport Working: Voices from the 20th Century”
(Bridgeport Public Library)
New Deal Projects (Library of Congress)
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“American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal
Writers’ Projects, 1936-1942”
“African Voices” (Smithsonian Institution)
“Benedicte Wrensted: An Idaho Photographer in Focus”
(Idaho Museum of Natural History)
“Talking History: Labor History Archive” (The University
at Albany. State University of New York)
“Bioscience and Biotechnology in History” (UC Berkeley
Bancroft Library. Regional Oral History Office; Open
Archives California)
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal
Writers' Project, 1936-1940
(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html)
The Federal Writers' Project materials in the Library of Congress
Manuscript Division are part of a larger collection titled The U.S. Work
Progress Administration Federal Writers' Project and Historical Records
Survey. The holdings from the Federal Writers' Project span the years
1889-1942 and cover a wide range of topics and subprojects. Altogether,
the Federal Writers' holdings number approximately 300,000 items and
consist of correspondence, memoranda, field reports, notes, graphs,
charts, preliminary and corrected drafts of essays, oral testimony, folklore,
miscellaneous administrative and miscellaneous other material. The
American Memory collection presented here is a coherent portion of the
larger Federal Writers' series. It includes the life histories and corollary
documents assembled by the Folklore Project with the Federal Writers'
effort.
"No one would be interested in my life."
That was often the response when the Historical Collections staff
asked local residents if we could ask them about their work
experiences in Bridgeport. "I didn't have an important job,"
they frequently added. Somewhat reluctantly, they finally agreed to
be interviewed. Later, as the tape recorder clicked off, the person
being interviewed was just getting warmed up.
Fascinating stories about living in Bridgeport flowed like the waters
of the Pequonnock River. Included were details of an ordinary
person's daily life that gave insight into the past decades,
moments that were hard to visualize for any newcomer to the City.
What was it like to work and live in Bridgeport, Connecticut
during the past century? Who else could tell us but people
who worked on the line in the factories; sold goods behind the
counter at a department store; taught children in the local schools;
ran a travel agency, worked as a housewife, drove a truck,
or ran one of the many other prosperous businesses that
helped Bridgeport grow and develop.
We thank the people who we interviewed for sharing
their life stories. You are not only interesting; your lives are
remarkable. We are happy to share your remarkable stories
with many generations to come. Who else could tell us what
it was like to work in Bridgeport, Connecticut during the 20th Century?
Idaho Museum of Natural History
Benedicte Wrensted: An Idaho Photographer in Focus
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/anthro/wrensted
One of the goals of this exhibition has been to demonstrate
the ways in which photographs, even those a century old, can
be placed in historical context. Only 1% of the Wrensted
images at the NARA were identified at the onset of the
project. Once they were shown to the descendants at the Fort
Hall Indian Reservation , the families of origin were
discovered. Individual names were recovered from written
records, and today 84% of Wrensted subjects have been
identified. Many of the photographs in this exhibit are
modern enlargements from copy negatives made from the
best possible prints, which were in turn made from the
original dry-plate glass negatives. A few of the reproductions
are made from vintage prints.
Oral History (DL)
The “Living Library”: Examples
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current approaches
 shared
historical artefacts (x-generational)
 genealogy
 databases as community resource
 shared storytelling
 tapping into resources of oral culture to create an
interactive archive with historical documents
 preserving local knowledge (video)
 preserving knowledge in ‘communities of practice’
DL Tools examples
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Library + Archival community standards metadata
Engineering community tools: technology + conceptual;
infrastructure for presentation
 ‘digital
storytelling’
 supporting access to large digital oral history
archives
 community databases
 technologies supporting collaborative work, online
communities, local sharing
 multimedia organization & tools for presentation
Conclusion
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as they engage oral history in their collections
memory institutions become active participants
in shaping historical record
acting upon representations
 offering plurivocality for existing collections
 ‘hybrid’ library
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“Tapping into knowledge bases of local subjects and the
neighborhoods in which they are produced is central to empowerment
and knowledge to reproduce locality is rooted in such dynamic contact
of people and technology in the global context. Digital libraries should
become a site and agency for such knowledge production processes.”
(Dalbello, in print 2003)