Oral History Guide: Home
About This Guide
Welcome to the Oral History Guide!
This guide includes necessary information and helpful resources for completing an oral history project. Peruse the guide using the tabs across the top to access these resources.
What is oral history?
"Oral history is the systematic collection of living people's testimony about their own experiences. Oral history is not folklore, gossip, hearsay, or rumor. Oral historians attempt to verify their findings, analyze them, and place them in an accurate historical context. Oral historians are also concerned with storage of their findings for use by later scholars." (dohistory.org)
"History is all around us, in our own families and communities, in the living memories and the experiences of older people. We have only to ask them and they can tell us enough stories to fill a library of books. This kind of history – that we all gather as we go through life – is called ORAL HISTORY... Most importantly, historical documents and books can’t tell us everything about our past... Oral history fills in the gaps and gives us history which includes everyone." (ohs.org.uk)
About the Resources
The following books, manuals, guides, and websites may be helpful at any stage of your oral history project, from preparation to presentation. You will find more resources on each tab that are specific to the stage of the project.
Books
Available at the Stark Campus library
Doing Oral History by
Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide is considered the premier guidebook to oral history, used by professional oral historians, public historians, archivists, and genealogists as a core text in college courses and throughout the public history community. Over the past decades, the developmentof digital audio and video recording technology has continued to alter the practice of oral history, making it even easier to produce quality recordings and to disseminate them on the Internet. This basic manual offers detailed advice on setting up an oral history project, conducting interviews,making video recordings, preserving oral history collections in archives and libraries, and teaching and presenting oral history.Using the existing QandA format, the third edition asks new questions and augments previous answers with new material, particularly in these areas:1. Technology: As before, the book avoids recommending specific equipment, but weighs the merits of the types of technology available for audio and video recording, transcription, preservation, and dissemination. Information about web sites is expanded, and more discussion is provided about howother oral history projects have posted their interviews online.2. Teaching: The new edition addresses the use of oral history in online teaching. It also expands the discussion of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) with the latest information about compliance issues.3. Presentation: Once interviews have been conducted, there are many opportunities for creative presentation. There is much new material available on innovative forms of presentation developed over the last decade, including interpretive dance and other public performances.4. Legal considerations: The recent Boston College case, in which the courts have ruled that Irish police should have access to sealed oral history transcripts, has re-focused attention on the problems of protecting donor restrictions. The new edition offers case studies from the past decade.5. Theory and Memory: As a beginner's manual, Doing Oral History has not dealt extensively with theoretical issues, on the grounds that these emerge best from practice. But the third edition includes the latest thinking about memory and provides a sample of some of the theoretical issues surroundingoral sources. It will include examples of increased studies into catastrophe and trauma, and the special considerations these have generated for interviewers.6. Internationalism: Perhaps the biggest development in the past decade has been the spreading of oral history around the world, facilitated in part by the International Oral History Association. New oral history projects have developed in areas that have undergone social and political upheavals,where the traditional archives reflect the old regimes, particularly in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The third edition includes many more references to non-U.S. projects that will still be relevant to an American audience.These changes make the third edition of Doing Oral History an even more useful tool for beginners, teachers, archivists, and all those oral history managers who have inherited older collections that must be converted to the latest technology.
Call Number: D16.14 .R57 2015ISBN: 9780199329335Publication Date: 2014-10-17
Place, Writing, and Voice in Oral History by
This book demonstrates how oral history can provide a valuable way of understanding locality, which is important in light of major issues facing the world today, including global environmental concerns.
Call Number: D16.14 .P55 2011ISBN: 9780230623699Publication Date: 2011-11-03
Oral History Manual by
The Oral History Manual is designed to help anyone interested in doing oral history research to think like an oral historian. Recognizing that oral history is a research methodology, the authors define oral history and then discuss the methodology in the context of the oral history life cycle - the guiding steps that take a practitioner from idea through access/use. They examine how to articulate the purpose of an interview, determine legal and ethical parameters, identify narrators and interviewers, choose equipment, develop budgets and record-keeping systems, prepare for and record interviews, care for interview materials, and use the interview information. In this third edition, in addition to new information on methodology, memory, technology, and legal options incorporated into each chapter, a completely new chapter provides guidelines on how to analyze interview content for effective use of oral history interview information. The Oral History Manual provides an updated and expanded road map and a solid introduction to oral history for all oral history practitioners, from students to community and public historians.
Call Number: D16.14 .S69 2018ISBN: 9781442270787Publication Date: 2018-07-05
Catching Stories by
In neighborhoods, schools, community centers, and workplaces, people are using oral history to capture and collect the kinds of stories that the history books and the media tend to overlook: stories of personal struggle and hope, of war and peace, of family and friends, of beliefs, traditions, and values--the stories of our lives. Catching Stories: A Practical Guide to Oral History is a clear and comprehensive introduction for those with little or no experience in planning or undertaking oral history projects. Opening with the key question, "Why do oral history?" the guide outlines the stages of a project from idea to final product--planning and research, the interviewing process, basic technical principles, and audio and video recording techniques. The guide covers interview transcribing, ethical and legal issues, archiving, funding sources, and sharing oral history with audiences. Intended for teachers, students, librarians, local historians, and volunteers as well as individuals, Catching Stories is the place to start for anyone who wants to document the memories and collect the stories of community or family.
Call Number: D16.14 .C379 2009ISBN: 9780804011167Publication Date: 2009-05-04
Oral History: Understanding Qualitative Research by
Oral History is part of the Understanding Qualitative Research series, which is designed to provide researchers with authoritative guides to understanding, presenting, and critiquing analyses and associated inferences. There are three subareas in this series: Quantitative Research,Measurement, and Qualitative Research. This volume fits in the Qualitative Research group and addresses issues surrounding oral history - how to both fully and succinctly report and present this material, as well as the challenges of evaluating it.
ISBN: 9780195395099Publication Date: 2011-02-24
Oral Tradition by
Oral traditions are historical sources of a special nature. Their special nature derives from the fact that they are "unwritten" sources couched in a form suitable for oral transmission, and that their preservation depends on the powers of memory of successive generations of human beings. In many parts of the world inhabited by peoples without writing, oral tradition forms the main available source for a reconstruction of the past. Do the special characteristics of oral traditions #65533; "unwritten" information dependent on the memory of successive generations #65533; invalidate them as sources of historical data? If not, are there means for testing their reliability? Professor Vansina shows in Oral Tradition that with knowledge of the language and of the society, the anthropologist and historian can extract or deduce the historical content of oral testimonies. Based on the author's many years of fieldwork in Africa, this definitive work explores the possibility of reconstructing the history of non-literate peoples from their oral traditions, surveys existing literature, offers a typology of oral traditions, and evaluates methods of collection and interpretation. On first publication, Daniel McCall in the American Anthropologist called Oral Tradition " a tour de force. Indeed this may well be the most significant work written on the relation of oral tradition to history in thirty years#65533;for any field worker who intends to collect oral traditions, this work is indispensable."
Call Number: D16.14 .V3613 2006ISBN: 9780202308197Publication Date: 2006-02-09
Recording Oral History by
Recording Oral History, now available in its third edition, provides a comprehensive guide to oral history for researchers and students in diverse fields including history, sociology, anthropology, education, psychology, social work, and ethnographic methods. Writing in a clear, accessible style, Valerie Yow builds on the foundations laid in prior editions of her widely used and highly regarded text to tackle not just the practicalities of interviewing but also the varied ethical, legal, and philosophical questions that can arise. The text--now twelve chapters--allows for dedicated discussion of both legalities and ethics. Other new material include recent research on how brain functions affect memory, more comprehensive demonstration of how to analyze an interview, and details on making the most of technology, both old and new. Each chapter concludes with updated and annotated Recommended Readings and tailored appendixes address new developments, such as institutional review boards and the Oral History Association's new Principles and Best Practices.
Call Number: D16.14 .Y68 2015ISBN: 9780759122666Publication Date: 2014-12-11
The Oxford Handbook of Oral History by Call Number: D16.14 .O95 2011ISBN: 9780195339550Publication Date: 2010-11-10
The Oral History Manual by
The Oral History Manual is designed to help anyone interested in doing oral history research to think like an oral historian. Recognizing that oral history is a research methodology, the authors first define oral history and provide an overview of its various applications. They then examine in detail the processes of planning and doing oral history, which include articulating the purpose of interviews, determining legal and ethical parameters, identifying narrators and interviewers, choosing equipment, developing budgets and record-keeping systems, preparing for and recording interviews, and caring for interview materials. The Oral History Manual provides a road map for all oral history practitioners, from students to public historians.
Call Number: q D16.14 .S69 2009ISBN: 9780759111578Publication Date: 2009-06-16
The Oral History Reader by
The Oral History Reader, now in its third edition, is a comprehensive, international anthology combining major, 'classic' articles with cutting-edge pieces on the theory, method and use of oral history. Twenty-seven new chapters introduce the most significant developments in oral history in the last decade to bring this invaluable text up to date, with new pieces on emotions and the senses, on crisis oral history, current thinking around traumatic memory, the impact of digital mobile technologies, and how oral history is being used in public contexts, with more international examples to draw in work from North and South America, Britain and Europe, Australasia, Asia and Africa. Arranged in five thematic sections, each with an introduction by the editors to contextualise the selection and review relevant literature, articles in this collection draw upon diverse oral history experiences to examine issues including: Key debates in the development of oral history over the past seventy years First hand reflections on interview practice, and issues posed by the interview relationship The nature of memory and its significance in oral history The practical and ethical issues surrounding the interpretation, presentation and public use of oral testimonies how oral history projects contribute to the study of the past and involve the wider community. The challenges and contributions of oral history projects committed to advocacy and empowerment With a revised and updated bibliography and useful contacts list, as well as a dedicated online resources page, this third edition of The Oral History Reader is the perfect tool for those encountering oral history for the first time, as well as for seasoned practitioners.
ISBN: 9781317371311Publication Date: 2015-11-19
History of Oral History by
Gathered here are parts I and II of the Handbook of Oral History, which set the benchmark for knowledge of the field. The eminent contributors discuss the history and methodologies of a field that once was the domain of history scholars who were responding to trends within the academy, but which has increasingly become democratized and widely used outside the realm of historical research. This handbook will be both a traveling guide and essential touchstone for anyone fascinated by this dynamic and expanding discipline.
Call Number: D16.14 .H63 2007ISBN: 9780759110854Publication Date: 2007-04-09
Guides and How-Tos
Oral History in the Digital Age
The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress
Planning an Oral History Project
Veteran's History Project (Library of Congress)
Oral History Association
Web Guides to Doing Oral History
Oral History Society UK
Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
UC Berkeley Library