Oral History for the Future: Preservation and Accessibility

If you want to ensure your oral histories are likely to be accessible in 100 years or more, this is the workshop for you! This advanced course is for anyone holding or creating oral history interviews outside of major libraries and archives, including community projects and local history societies. It is arranged in three parts.

First: Documentation of oral history interviews and collections (covering electronic file management; post-interview summaries; transcription (pros, cons and tools); timed summaries; translation; and metadata).

Second: Rights – moral, ethical and legal (covering:  informed consent, and why it’s important; gathering and recording consent; copyright; access and storage: now and into the future; editing interviews; and risk management involving sensitive topics, data security, privacy and legal considerations).

Third: Archive storage and accessibility (covering: places to keep your oral history collection nationally, state-based and locally; collection policies; how to approach a collecting institution; Victorian Collections options; and an archive checklist).

Combining expert advice, useful examples and resources, and group activities, this course was designed for Oral History Victoria by Way Back When Consulting Historians.

OHV gratefully acknowledges the Local History Grants Program and Public Record Office Victoria, supported by the Victorian Government through the Community Support Fund, for the funds to enable the development of the training materials.

Registrations close Wednesday 11th March.

TRAINER PROFILES

Alistair Thomson, national award-winning teacher and now Emeritus Professor of History at Monash University, taught his first oral history workshop in 1985 at the Wangaratta Centre for Continuing Education and has been teaching oral history in both community and academic settings ever since. Al is currently President of Oral History Australia. His oral history books include: Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend (1994), The Oral History Reader (2016), Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants (2005), Moving Stories: an intimate history of four women across two countries (2011), Oral History and Photography (2011), and Australian Lives: An Intimate History (2017). Al is currently leading a research project about the history of fathering in Australia and co-editing The Bloomsbury Oral History Handbook. Contact: Alistair.Thomson@monash.edu

NOTE: Tickets are made first available to OHV members. OHV members also benefit from reduced rates for registrations. For more details on OHV membership visit https://oralhistoryvictoria.org.au

As a community organisation, OHV reserves the right to cancel this training should there be inadequate registration numbers to cover costs, or in other unforeseeable circumstances. Should we need to cancel the training you will be refunded the cost of your ticket.