Environmental Studies Research Guide

Principles and best practices for Oral History

This paper is aimed at post-graduate students, and provides an overview of oral history methodology. It gives specific instructional guidance on doing interviews and fieldwork.

Interview advice from the Oral History Center.

This is the Journal of the Oral History Society. Back issues of the journal are available through JSTOR. Coverage: 1972-2013

Oral History Forum d'histoire orale began publication in 1975-76. It became an e-journal with volume 27-28 (2007-8) and is now open access. Forum publishes peer-reviewed articles, book and multi-media reviews, and other contributions to the field of oral history and oral tradition.

The official publication of the Oral History Association since 1973, explores the recording, transcribing, and preserving of conversations with people who have participated in important political, cultural, and economic social developments in modern times. Back issues of the journal are available through JSTOR. Coverage: 1973-2009.

Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor presents approximately twelve hours of opinions recorded in the days and months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor from more than two hundred individuals in cities and towns across the United States.

This collection of life histories consists of approximately 2,900 documents, compiled and transcribed by more than 300 writers from 24 states, working on the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers’ Project, a New Deal jobs program that was part of the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration (WPA) from 1936 to 1940. Typically 2,000-15,000 words in length, the documents vary in form from narratives to dialogues to reports to case histories.

In partnership with eighty five libraries, archives and museums, the California Preservation Program provides digitization, preservation and access services for historic California audiovisual recordings. The "California Light and Sound" collection of recordings provides "glimpses and whispers" of our state's rich audiovisual heritage.

The Densho Digital Archive holds a wealth of visual history interviews and other materials that broadly document the Japanese American experience.

The Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History online provides access to typescripts of interviews (1967 -1972) conducted with hundreds of Indians in Oklahoma regarding the histories and cultures of their respective nations and tribes.

This collection contains transcribed meetings and interviews with Civil Rights workers in the South recorded by several Stanford students affiliated with the campus radio station KZSU during the summer of 1965.

The Regional Oral History Office (ROHO), a division of The Bancroft Library, documents the history of California, the nation, and the interconnected global arena. ROHO produces carefully researched, audio/video-recorded and transcribed oral histories and interpretative historical materials for the widest possible use. ROHO has conducted over 4,000 oral histories, which totals tens of thousands of interview hours. Nearly every interview that has been transcribed is available for the public to read on the ROHO website.

The Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.

Oral history transcripts of more than 50 "labor, peace, and anti-racism activists; artists and writers; lesbian rights advocates; grassroots anti-violence and anti-poverty organizers; and women of color reproductive justice leaders."

The World Oral Literature Project is an urgent global initiative to document and disseminate endangered oral literatures before they disappear without record. The Project supports local communities and committed fieldworkers engaged in the collection and preservation of all forms of oral literature by providing funding for original research, alongside training in fieldwork and digital archiving methods.

Through interviews with AICLS founders, Breath of Life Workshop participants, and University of California, Berkeley, linguists and archivists, this study uncovers the role archivists play in the Breath of Life Workshops and in the care of Native language collections more generally.

StoryCorps’ mission is to provide people of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share and preserve the stories of our lives