"Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews."
How technology has revolutionized the recording, transcribing, and preservation of oral history content.
Definition of Oral History: Understanding the meaning, purpose, and characteristics of oral history as a method of collecting and preserving historical information based on the spoken word.
Technology in Oral History: Discovering the role of technology in the collection, preservation, and dissemination of oral history, including tools such as digital recorders, transcription software, and online repositories.
Ethics of Oral History: Considering the ethical concerns of oral history, including informed consent, confidentiality, and appropriate use of information.
Interviewing Techniques: Learning effective techniques for conducting interviews, including creating a comfortable environment, asking open-ended questions, and actively listening.
Legal Issues in Oral History: Understanding legal issues related to oral history, such as copyright, ownership, and access.
Transcription and Data Management: Exploring the process of transcribing interviews, data management, and preservation, including file formats, processing, and storage.
Archiving and Metadata: Understanding the process of archiving oral history materials, including creating metadata and organizing collections for retrieval and use.
Audience and Accessibility: Identifying potential audiences for oral history materials and creating strategies for making them accessible to a broad range of users.
Digitization: Learning about the process of digitizing oral history materials, including scanning, image capture, and OCR (optical character recognition).
Technology and Oral History Education: Exploring the ways technology can be used to teach oral history, including online resources, digital storytelling, and multimedia presentations.
Audio recording technology: This technology involves the use of technology to record audio narratives of oral history interviews. The recordings are typically done on a device such as a tape recorder or digital recorder.
Video recording technology: This technology takes the audio recording a step further by also capturing the visual aspects of the interview. It uses cameras to record the interview and capture both audio and video.
Transcription technology: This involves converting the audio or video recording of an oral history interview into text. The technology typically uses software to transcribe the recording efficiently and accurately.
Archiving technology: This involves the use of technology to store and preserve oral history recordings for safekeeping. The technology may include digital storage options such as cloud storage or external hard drives.
Metadata technology: This technology involves creating and managing data about oral history recordings. It includes information about individuals interviewed, dates, locations, audio quality, and other relevant information.
Interpretive technology: This technology involves using tools such as software and multimedia to interpret and present the oral history material. This allows the material to be presented in new and engaging ways.
Online communication technology: This technology allows for remote oral history interviews to be conducted using video conferencing tools. It also allows for interviews to be shared with a wider audience online.
Digital preservation technology: This involves using technology tools to preserve oral history material in a digital format. It includes techniques such as digital file migration and emulation to ensure that the material is accessible and usable in the future.
Oral history indexing technology: This involves creating indexes or catalogues of oral history recordings to enable more accessible searching and retrieval.
Oral history visualization technology: This involves using technology tools to turn oral history interviews into compelling visual stories. It may include tools such as mapping software, data visualization, and multimedia storytelling.
"These interviews are conducted with people who participated in or observed past events and whose memories and perceptions of these are to be preserved as an aural record for future generations."
"Oral history strives to obtain information from different perspectives and most of these cannot be found in written sources."
"Knowledge presented by Oral History (OH) is unique in that it shares the tacit perspective, thoughts, opinions, and understanding of the interviewee in its primary form."
"To preserve memories and perceptions of past events for future generations as an aural record."
"Often preserved in archives and large libraries."
"In Western society, the use of oral material goes back to the early Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides, both of whom made extensive use of oral reports from witnesses."
"The modern concept of oral history was developed in the 1940s by Allan Nevins and his associates at Columbia University."
"Primitive societies have long relied on oral tradition to preserve a record of the past in the absence of written histories."
"Professional historians usually consider oral tradition to be any information about past events that witnesses told anybody else."
"Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews."
"Oral history strives to obtain information from different perspectives and most of these cannot be found in written sources."
"Knowledge presented by Oral History (OH) is unique in that it shares the tacit perspective, thoughts, opinions, and understanding of the interviewee in its primary form."
"These interviews are conducted with people who participated in or observed past events, and whose memories and perceptions of these are to be preserved as an aural record for future generations."
"Oral history complements written histories by providing a different source of information, often capturing details and perspectives not found in written sources."
"Preserving oral history data ensures that memories and perspectives of past events are not lost and can be accessed by future generations."
"Oral history enhances our understanding of the past by incorporating personal experiences and subjective accounts, which offer unique insights into historical events."
"Oral history interviews are often preserved in archives and large libraries."
"The early Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides made extensive use of oral reports from witnesses."
"The primary objective of oral history is to collect and study historical information about people, families, important events, or everyday life using various mediums."