Potholes & Pitfalls: Presenting Oral History over Time - Dena Scher, Professor Emerita at Marygrove College
The past was a struggle, the present brought opportunities, the future is bleak.
ABSTRACT: Past: In the past, oral histories were tapes often with an inaccurate record or a summary of the recording. Interviewers often focused on well-known (famous) individuals. The potholes of this time were big bulky recorders, the time or expense needed to provide an accurate paper transcription, and the focus on the famous or wealthy.Present: Technology opened opportunities for more oral historians with better recorders. The recorders had become tiny handheld and could be downloaded directly into a computer. Then more technological advances came with cell phone technology. Correspondingly, less expensive transcription services became available, and some newer AI (artificial intelligence) software increased the reach of oral histories. Cultural values had changed so that the voices of many people were collected adding historical material about the lives of women, immigrants, individuals who are black, brown, or red and the list goes on. The potholes of this time were the need for agreed upon standards for interview collection and a standard of training for interviewers. The placement and storage of interviews was uneven, mostly in educational settings but in some other venues as well.Future: Now we have increased interviews in different venues and there are interviewing guidelines and ethical directives from the Oral History Association (OHA) as well as libraries, and academic settings. The pitfall of the future is that we are losing interviews and whole collections of oral histories because of the lack of technological support and inattention to need for frequent updating and synching with new technologies. When a technical system is not supported, when a college or library closes, when staffing changes and loses the ability to update the interface, oral histories can be lost and disappear forever. There is not a paper copy, or a voice as there may have been in the past. The future is bleak if we do not pay attention to storage, updating, and technical support of oral history collections.
The Importance of Context to Oral History: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives - Mary Larson, Oklahoma State University Library
The importance placed on providing context for oral histories has waxed and waned over the last few decades, in large part as a result of the formats we have used to make interviews accessible. This talk considers the changing role of context and how the lack or presence of it can change how we have made meaning from oral histories in the past and how we might be able to do so in the future.
ABSTRACT: The potential meanings that researchers and the general public have been able to draw from oral histories have evolved over the years along with the context provided by the media on which they are recorded and through which they are presented. A transcript can be a pale representation of an interview, while making audio recordings available provides more depth and emotion. Having video recordings adds body language and visible interaction to the mix, and, more recently, online videos with contextualizing information such as photographs, maps, and documents bring us yet a fuller understanding of the moment that was recorded. But what happens to these oral histories in the age of big data and AI? There is certainly valuable research that can be accomplished in areas like digital humanities, particularly, with oral histories contributing to spoken-word corpora creation and being available for language analysis. But, how does this change of format -- the conversion from contextualized interview to possibly decontextualized or differently contextualized data -- impact how we make meaning from oral histories, and what does that suggest for us as practitioners?
Remembering Our Firsts: Reflecting and Reconnecting with Past Projects - Lauren Kata, NYU Abu Dhabi
Do you remember your first oral history project? This talk, "Remembering our Firsts: Reflecting and Reconnecting with Pasts Projects," considers my first project over 20 years ago and the questions and considerations that arise when we reflexively look back on earlier moments of oral history practice.
ABSTRACT: Do you remember your first oral history project? “Remembering our Firsts: Reflecting and Reconnecting with Past Projects” discusses my project of revisiting the first project I developed and managed over 20 years ago. I consider the process of “going back in time” to re-listen and re-read my own interviews of earlier eras. Questions I ask include, how might I engage the project today? Would I ask the same questions? What do I wish I would have done that I didn’t? Now an open archival collection, how have others engaged these interviews since I co-created them? These questions and this project are not meant for navel gazing; rather, I believe reconnecting with our earlier work can be a cathartic, reflexive, and even pedagogical exercise around one’s oral history practice, and can be an affirmation of growth within the discipline.
H.O.P.E.: History Orally Passed Eclectically - Tanya Finchum, Oklahoma State University
C.R. Snyder's theory of hope will be discussed and applied to various oral history collections demonstrating hope as a bridge between the past, present, and future.
ABSTRACT: Thirty years ago, “The Psychology of Hope: You can get there from here” was published. Snyder anchored hope to a concrete goal and suggested that hope reflects a mental set in which we have the perceived agency as well as pathways (or bridges) to get to our destination. We get inspiration from various sources (such as OHA) to help us move toward and accomplish our goals. Reflecting on almost twenty years of OHA membership and thinking about Snyder’s theory, I conclude that I arrived at my first OHA conference, Little Rock 2006, with hope. I had demonstrated agency and had transversed pathways by choosing to attend a ROHO Summer Institute, by reading numerous articles, and by having conversations with folks like Terry Birdwhistle and Nancy McKay. I came armed with years of social worker and librarian interviewing experience and with enthusiasm for a career change. I left with homework to do, which led to reviewing the proceedings of OHA conferences held in the 1960s where I found connections to librarians such as Elizabeth Dixon and Louis Shores. OHA indeed has an eclectic mix of members and mentors, many of whom have contributed to an eclectic collection of oral histories, hence history orally passed eclectically. Further, our narrators come from various walks of life which further contributes to the patchwork tapestry of documenting humanity. For this presentation I will share about a few of the practitioners that inspired my path as well as highlight some examples of collections I have contributed to that I think demonstrate Snyder’s theory of hope and how hope can connect the past, present, and future.
