PLANNING AND IMPLELMENTING AN ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
ALASKA LIBRARY ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE
MARCH 2010
Hi EVERYONE, it’s great to be here in Alaska. This trip is giving me the opportunity to come full circle in a
professional path I been pursuing for the past eight years –of bridging the gap between librarians and
oral historians. It was an Alaska connection that got me started down this road in the first place. In 2003
Robyn Russell of the UAF oral history program invited me to join a panel titled Archival Considerations
for Librarians and Oral Historians at the Oral History Association conference. You can get a sense of
Robyn’s sense of urgency of the problem by the title of her presentation: Terror at 20,000 Tapes. Our
little meeting room was packed, and oral historians stayed afterwards to ask the panelists more
questions – about cataloging, preservation, rights management, and access. Unfortunately we left with
too many question marks in the air, as many of the questions did not seem to have an answer.
Those questions, especially the ones that we librarians couldn’t answer, just kept nagging me. I came
home from that conference wondering how many other libraries had oral histories in their collections
that were underutilized, poorly catalogued, not properly cared for, or just plain forgotten on the
problem shelf. I spent the next three years looking for answers. I visited libraries that keep oral
histories; I talked to librarians and archivists about their internal procedures regarding oral histories; I
conducted a formal survey on oral histories in libraries in archives, and eventually I wrote a book on the
subject, Curating Oral Histories, which deals with access, care, and preservation of oral history materials.
More recently, my interest in community oral history has brought my attention to another connection
between oral histories and libraries, that is, actually planning and implementing an oral history project
within a library. As we know, the library paradigm is shifting from a library as a repository for
information to a library as an active hub for community and scholarly involvement. What could be more
fitting to further this new paradigm than for a community to document its own history and add the
results to the library collection? And what could be more fitting to the mission of a library than to serve
as the project’s sponsor and permanent home?
Some of the most successful ongoing oral history projects and programs I know about have a strong
library connection – the UAF oral history program right here in Alaska is a good example. Why does this
make such a good match? The primary reason is that an oral history project within a library has a built-in
permanent home, and finding this permanent home – archiving in library language – is one of the most
complicated and difficult tasks for independent oral history projects. A library also has the physical
space, the institutional stability, a mission of community involvement, and a mission of open
information access to offer to an oral history project.
Today, I’m going to introduce you to what might be involved in conducting an oral history project in your
library and try to plant a seed in your mind for achieving this end within your own library.
Page 1 of 10
2/8/2016 9:19 AM
First, let’s step back a bit to talk about oral history itself.
So just what is oral history? My favorite definition is this one sentence: Oral history is a method for
collecting recent history through the eyes of those who lived it. In addition: Oral history is a recognized
field with a graduate level courses, a professional association, a body of scholarly literature, and a code
of professional standards. It originated anywhere between 2500 years ago and 50 years ago, depending
on how you look at it. The story of its evolution is fascinating, but that’s for another day. Oral history is
both a methodology and a product. For example, I can say “I’m using oral history methods in my
research” and also “I just completed an oral history of Mr. X.”
Oral history is often called the people’s history. It is used to give voice to underrepresented groups –
those who didn’t make it into the pages of history books. For example, oral history projects can
document immigrant experience, labor movements, civil rights, or everyday life in an ordinary
neighborhood. Oral history is also used to glean a personal perspective of a historical event, such as
Hurricane Katrina at the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank1 , September 11 Narratives at Columbia
University2 , or the Rocky Flats Oral History Project3, which documents the history of the controversial
Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Boulder Colorado.
Oral history is also used for community building -- among disparate groups or between generations. I
was recently involved in such a project in my hometown, where high school and college students
interviewed elders from Oakland Chinatown. The primary purpose was to enhance understanding
between youth and elders within this complex community that makes up Chinatown --complex in
culture of origin, language, age, and immigration status. Both student interviewers and narrators
consider this a transformational experience, and gained new insights into their own culture and their
own family dynamics. But the project had an additional goal of documenting history, and the ten
interviews collectively paint a colorful and personal picture of Oakland Chinatown. Interviews are safely
archived at a public library and a college library and will be available to library researchers far into the
future.
So now what? How do you get from a definition to a product? Like any history, oral history derives
meaning from its context. It is common to organize oral history interviews into projects around a
specific topic, historical event, or the life of a community. Using this model, the interview focuses on
personal experiences around a theme – for example, community change as a result of urban renewal,
individual experiences around a national disaster, returning veterans adjusting to life back home, or a
new immigrant group and how it changes community dynamics. Collectively, these narratives present a
balanced, bottom up account of the topic, full of rich details and anecdotes that would complement the
official account. If these interviews can be archived, then they will sit on the library shelf – or in the
database -- alongside the official history, and offer future researchers a more balanced picture of the
topic.
1
Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, http://www.hurricanearchive.org/
September 11, 2001 oral history narrative and memory project, http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/oral/
3
Rocky Flats Cold War Museum, http://www.rockyflatscoldwarmuseum.org/
2
Page 2 of 10
2/8/2016 9:19 AM
Oral history projects can be large or small, stand alone or ongoing, expensive or low budget. But there
are certain components that I feel must be present to make it oral history:






It must be in interview format
The interview must be recorded
It must be grounded in history
The narrator’s wishes are always respected, and the relationship between the interviewer and in
narrator is acknowledged
It must be archived and made available to present and future researchers
It must follow the professional standards of the Oral History Association4
So with that overview, I hope you are starting to wonder about the possibility for your library. But there
are still a few important questions people almost always ask.
1. How much will it cost? A good oral history project requires a great deal of expertise, equipment,
supplies and computer needs. But many of the expenses for community projects can be offset by
donations of time, skill, and equipment. Costs can include equipment (recording, computer); personnel
(consultant, project director, trainer, videographer, transcriber, and interviewer); office supplies
(phone, copying, postage, etc.) Think about each of these items in the context of your own library and
how that cost might be met through volunteer work, partnerships with community business, or those
that can be absorbed within the library system. With good planning and a skilled and dedicated team,
oral history doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.
2. I don’t know anything about recording technology. Oral history guidelines state that interviews be
recorded in archival quality audio or video. Digital formats, though all around better, add another level
of complexity, and oral history projects are increasingly turning to experts to handle the recording
aspect, especially if they use video.
Decisions about the recording process should be made during the planning stages – whether to
purchase or rent equipment, whether to use audio or video, whether to employ a recording technician
or to leave the job to the interviewer, as well as decisions around digital format specifications for
recording, preserving, and presenting. As technology becomes more complicated, oral history projects
increasingly look to outside experts within the community, or among paid consultants, and you’d be
surprised how many “experts” are hidden away in high school or community college courses, and
among the tech-buffs within your community.
3. How much time does it take? No question about it, doing oral history labor intensive. It is rare that a
library can successfully complete an oral history project with the existing staff. I estimate allocating 1050 hours per interview. But those hours are distributed among many tasks done by many people:
interviewer to prepare the interview and contact narrator, staff time for administrative details, the
interview itself, transcription, and cataloging.
4
Oral History Evaluation Guidelines, http://www.oralhistory.org/do-oral-history/oral-history-evaluationguidelines/
Page 3 of 10
2/8/2016 9:19 AM
Stages in an oral history project. Speaking about time leads me to the next topic. Another way of
measuring time is the duration required for a project, that is, the cycle from the beginning of the project
to the end. In many projects the duration is determined by an outside event – a celebration or grant
deadline.
This leads me to the next piece of the puzzle – mapping out the structure of the project. An oral history
project can be divided into three stages: planning, interviewing, and processing. I especially want to
emphasize this, because it is so common for first time projects to deemphasize or even forego the
planning and processing stages, do the interviews and be done with it. When this happens, the project
suffers greatly.
Scenario. Let’s say, for example, your library is going to conduct an oral history project to mark your
city’s centennial in 2013. Three years sounds like a long ways off, but it’s a perfect timeframe to plan
and execute an oral history project.
Planning. You have a full year to plan, raise funds, build a team, and develop enthusiasm within the
community. Here are some tasks that the librarian in charge might undertake:
1. Form an advisory group to assist in early planning and to advise throughout the project. Tap into
existing communities – schools, churches, cultural organizations, business associations – to form
a diverse group to represent the city. Members should represent various constituencies you’d
like to document – ethnic or religious groups, occupational groups, and age groups. The purpose
of this group is to hold honest discussions to formulate the scope and shape of the project.
2. Begin by answering these three questions:
a) What is the historical question? (city history over the past 100 years)
b) What is the project goal? (document city’s history)
c) What is the project outcome? (centennial celebration)
3. Then delve a little deeper to answer questions that will help you structure a project, such as,
What are the geographical and chronological boundaries?
What underrepresented groups need a voice in the city’s history, and what is the best way to
tap into those groups?
What are the major transitional events that define this city’s history?
What are the large topics we want to address?
4. Write a mission statement. This should be a short statement – about one paragraph – which
answers the questions above. The mission statement will serve as an anchor during the
vicissitudes and sidetracks that are bound to happen during the course of your project.
5. Appoint a project director. This person can be a library staff member who is given release time
to work on the project, or a community member. The project director needs with strong
administrative skills, good people skills, a wide network of contacts within the community. Be
Page 4 of 10
2/8/2016 9:19 AM
realistic in understanding the demands of this position. It is very unlikely that a library staff
member could undertake a project along with other duties.
6. Now, the project director map out the structure of the project and develop a timeline: How will
you select people to interview? Will interviews be audio or video? What kind of training will you
give interviewers? How many interviews will you conduct? Will they be done within a specific
window of time or throughout the project? Will interviews be transcribed? Develop a plan for
processing and cataloging.
7. In addition, the project director can make a laundry list of needs: technical expertise,
equipment, funds, historical research, and so forth; and another list of resources: schools for
possible student interns or technical help; community organizations who might contribute time,
expertise, or services; state humanities council or local university for consulting or other
expertise; local business who might give financial or in-kind support. Be creative and think out of
the box.
8. Develop a budget and seek funding or in kind donations to meet these needs. Be realistic.
9. Reach out to the community to talk up the project. Conduct focus groups in schools, churches
and community organizations. Emphasize that this is a community project and their involvement
is important to the project’s success.
10. Research the city’s history to develop a timeline and set of important historical markers and
important topics that will be discussed in the interviews.
11. Discuss impact of the project on your library: cataloging needs, space needs, additional public
programs.
Interviewing. By this point, the project director should be in place. Now it’s time to start the interview
stage. This is what we usually think about when we do oral history. It is the most satisfying part – the
exchange of memories and stories – the telling and the listening. The interview, of course, is the reason
we go to all this trouble to capture the narrator’s words and preserve them in libraries so future
generations can appreciate the voice quality, speaking patterns, as well as personal account of history.
Here are some steps for the interviewing phase in our hypothetical centennial oral history project.
1. Recruit and train interviewers. Include guidelines on the questions to ask, based on the
historical research done about the city.
2. Select narrators (those to be interviewed). Be sure to make selections to represent a broad
perspective of the community’s history – in age, cultural and religious background, length of
time living in the city, and political and economical perspective, and any other categories
especially important to your city.
Page 5 of 10
2/8/2016 9:19 AM
3. Set up a record keeping system for tracking interview dates and each step of the processing.
4. Develop legal consent form that each narrator and interviewer will sign. This signed document
authorizes the library to conduct the interview and to make it available in the library’s
collection. – Talk about informed consent here. Three things: a) who you are, b) why you want
the information, c) what will you do with the information.
5. Make final decisions about recording equipment and make arrangements for purchase or rental
of equipment, and studio space if necessary
6. Assign interviewer/interviewee pairs. Keep records of all of this. If possible, the interviewer
should meet with the narrator for a non-recorded pre-interview, to get acquainted, explain the
process, and answer any questions
7. Conduct the interview!
After the Interview. Processing refers to all the tasks involved in turning an interview sound file into an
oral history sitting on the library shelf ready to be used. This is the stage that is hardest to convince most
groups the importance of, but for librarians this is the stage we are probably most comfortable with.
This is the stage to work closely with cataloging staff. Allow about 40% of the project’s duration for
processing. Here are some typical processing tasks:
1. Make user and preservation copies from the master recording. Label all copies and store
properly.
2. Transcribe the recording.
3. Develop interview data template and ask interviewers to fill in information. This information will
be passed on to the cataloger.
4. Package oral history to sit on the shelf. Many libraries keep oral histories in non-circulating
collections, but I have found that the benefits of increased use outweigh the problems of
occasionally having to replace the item.
5. CELEBRATE!! One of the principles of oral history is to give back to the community and to the
narrators who have shared their memories for future generations. Again, this is one of the most
gratifying parts of the project.
o Thank the narrators at the public celebration and/or privately through a followup letter
or personal visit
o Incorporate oral histories into the centennial celebration through DVD viewings, public
readings, or perhaps a panel on the city’s history.
o Publicize oral histories in the library through library website, newspaper articles, and
displays
o Remember, though the project was motivated by the Centennial event, the interviews
have lasting historical significance and if properly processed for the library, the value will
extend far into the future.
Page 6 of 10
2/8/2016 9:19 AM
EXAMPLES
Veteran’s Oral History Project, Morse Institute Library, Natick, Mass5.
Morse Institute Library is, despite its name, a public library in the Boston suburb of Natick,
Massachusetts. In 1998 the library instituted an oral history project to document veterans in and
around the township of Natick. The initial project documented narratives of World War II veterans, but
has expanded to include recent wars and conflicts. Narrators served in any armed forces, including
foreign ones, in peacetime or wartime, stateside or abroad, combat or non-combat. The unifying factor
was membership in the community of Natick, rather than military affiliation, and the narratives of
European veterans very much enrich the project.
The project was conceived in 1998 by a Natick resident and Pearl Harbor survivor who recognized that
many veterans were passing away without telling their stories. Public Relations Coordinator Joan Craig
picked up on this need and enlisted community support for this important documentation project.
Except for the Ms. Craig’s position, all the funding came from outside the library – from grants, veterans
groups, private donors, and the town of Natick and state of Massachusetts. Video duplication and other
services were donated by community members interested in the project.
When asked for secrets to success, Ms. Craig said, “The Project is a success because it is in a library. We
have comfortable study rooms in which to hold the interviews. Videos are catalogued in the library.
Information about the interview and veteran is put on our website … and our archival copy is stored in a
temperature controlled archive room.”
At the time I visited the library in 2005, they had conducted 138 interviews on video. With a strong
commitment to the community – and to preservation and access, they made some innovative decisions
about where to allocate resources. They decided to forego transcribing, and target their limited
resources to video recording and archiving. I was fascinated by the fact that videocassettes of the
interviews were right there on the circulating shelves for patrons to view in the library or to check out
and take home. They are even available through interlibrary loan.6 Narrators sign a consent form
explaining how the videotape will be used. And they have gotten requests for use from all over the
world. There is no editing or review of the videotapes before they are processed for use.
This library has done an outstanding job of collecting and preserving narratives of community members,
but with a topic of global historical significance, and has succeeded with sporadic funding, a well
designed plan, community enthusiasm, and commitment from the library.
5
http://www.natickvets.org. Contact veterans@morseinstitute.org.
I was so impressed that when I got home, I moved all the oral histories from my own library from special
collections to circulating.
6
Page 7 of 10
2/8/2016 9:19 AM
The Greenwich Library Oral History Project7.
Since 1973, the Greenwich Library Oral History Project has been successfully documenting its
community history, and making the resulting oral histories available through the public library system.
Community residents, high school students, family history researchers, journalists, filmmakers, authors,
and scholars make up the user base. Interviews are audio-recorded and transcribed; and bound
transcripts are available for in-library use.
This project emphasizes publication. Books, transcripts, and indexes by subject and name are available
to the public. The library reports the oral histories are extraordinarily popular. The Project has
completed 825 interviews, including interviews of the Project’s founder and co-director, which provide
important documentation of the project itself. In addition, the Project has published 135 hardcover
books, based on the oral histories. These books are for sale by the Friends of the Library and support the
project both through outreach and actual funding. Three interviews have been published as audio
books, also available for borrowing or purchase. And in 1986 community members produced a
successful musical revue based on the oral histories and presented it as a fundraiser for the oral history
project.
The project was originally conceived as a short term project, to conclude in 1977 with the interviews to
be Greenwich’s contribution to the Bicentennial Celebration. But the end was not to come about so
soon. Current director Cathy Ogden reports: “We have no record of why the Project continued;
however, an early member recalls that the [committee members] looked at each other around the
table, and wondered why they should stop such a good thing.” And here it is, thriving, more than 35
years later.
One secret to this project’s success is its long and deep connection to the Greenwich Library. The Oral
History Project is a committee of the Friends of the Library. The Friends manage fundraising,
administration, and outreach, leaving the oral history committee free to do oral history. The library
provides office space, publicity and outreach, and, of course, cataloging and a repository for the final
product.
The project is run by dedicated volunteers. Much of the small budget goes to the salary of a 10 hour a
week office assistant. The team of 30 volunteers includes the interview chairman, interviewers, a book
designer, indexers, transcribers, a publicity writer, and webmaster. We all know it’s hard to keep good
volunteers, and to keep them motivated. I think the ability of the Greenwich Project to run for more
than 30 years on volunteers is testimony to the satisfaction of doing oral history, the community’s
commitment to oral history, and the ability of the project leaders to inspire.
7
http://www.glohistory.org/. Contact ohistory@greenwichlibrary.org
Page 8 of 10
2/8/2016 9:19 AM
Neighborhood Voices, Houston Public Library8.
Finally, I want to tell you about another approach to oral history, taken by Houston Public Library --the
Neighborhood Voices Project. According to librarian Judith Hiott, this project began as a pilot for a
larger project, but turned out to be a wonderful standalone project by itself. In 2008 the Houston mayor
Bill White commissioned 100 oral history interviews of ordinary people who had done extraordinary
things like build the Astrodome or integrate the police and fire departments. The Neighborhood Voices
was really a way to reach out into the community and identify those ordinary/extraordinary Houston
residents.
The project was organized around Houston neighborhoods, roughly around the branch libraries and the
city council districts. Neighborhood residents were invited to participate. Publicity included newspaper
articles, as well as the networks of the city council members and the branch libraries. An “oral history
event” was scheduled at each branch library throughout the year. About 60 “interviews” were
conducted and videotaped, and are now available on the Houston Public Library website.
Though these short (15 minute) interviews would not qualify as “oral histories” in the most formal sense
(it was not a structured interview as much as someone recounting a neighborhood story on tape), the
resulting collection offers a wonderful snapshot of Houston neighborhoods at a particular point in time,
and available for the whole city – and the whole world – to enjoy over the Internet. I’m very pleased
that the librarians in charge were able to see the lasting value, what was originally intended just as a
pilot project and a way to recruit narrators for the larger, mayor’s project.
IS THERE AN ORAL HISTORY PROJECT IN YOUR LIBRARY’S FUTURE?
Not all of us are Houston, Texas or Greenwich, Connecticut, but all of us are members of communities
with local history and lore every bit as rich and interesting, and every bit as worthy of documenting. I
hope my remarks have opened the door to thinking about how oral history might be integrated into
your library programs. And if conducting an oral history project is a little too ambitious there are other
ways to bring oral history into your library.





8
You can offer workshops in using oral history for family research.
You can make recording equipment available for loan.
You can incorporate story circles into public programs.
You can add books based on oral history and on oral history methodology to your collection as a
way of promoting oral history.
Most important to me, you can incorporate oral history into your collecting policy and actively
encourage donations of quality oral histories into your own collections.
http://www.houstonoralhistory.org/neighborhood-voices.html# Contact information@houstonoralhistory.org
Page 9 of 10
2/8/2016 9:19 AM
RESOURCES - Online
H-ORALHIST (discussion forum), http://www.h-net.org/~oralhist/
Oral History Association, http://www.oralhistory.org/
Oral History Association Evaluation Guidelines, http://www.oralhistory.org/do-oral-history/oral-historyevaluation-guidelines/
Oral History Pamphlet Series (Short books on special topics in oral history),
http://www.oralhistory.org/publications/pamphlet-series/
Society of American Archivists, Oral History Section,
http://www.archivists.org/saagroups/oralhist/index.asp
University of Alaska Oral History Program, http://library.uaf.edu/oral-history
RESOURCES – Books
MacKay, Nancy. Curating Oral Histories: from Interview to Archive). Left Coast Press, 2007.
Ritchie, Donald A. Doing Oral History: a Practical Guide. 2nd ed. Oxford University, 2003.
Schneider, William. So They Understand: Cultural Issues in Oral History. Utah State University, 2002.
Sommer, Barbara W. and Mary Kay Quinlan. Oral History Manual. 2nd. ed. Altamira Press, 2009.
Trimble, Charles E. and Barbara W. Sommer and Mary Kay Quinlan. The American Indian Oral History
Manual. Left Coast Press, 2008.
Page 10 of 10
2/8/2016 9:19 AM