"A method of gathering and preserving historical information through recorded interviews with participants in past events and ways of life."  - Oral History Association (OHA)

"An oral history interview generally consists of a well-prepared interviewer questioning an interviewee and recording their exchange on audio or videotape."  - Don Ritchie

"The power of oral history is shown by the voices, not typed-out in the words of its narrators" - Troy Reeves (8/26/15 UWM DH presentation)

Oral History Organizations, Archivists, Historians & Researchers:

• Oral History in the Digital Age Project (Michigan State University) - Director Doug Boyd
• Oral History Online (OHMS) - 
• Oral History Association (OHA)
• Doug Boyd - University of Kentucky - Oral History and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access, and Engagement
• Editor of special volume of Oral History Review 2013 40(1) on Oral History in the Digital Age
• Ask Doug - choosing appropriate audio recorders for the task
• Digital Omnium - Doug's blog on technology and topics related to oral histories in digital age
  
• Troy Reeves - UW-Madison
• Donald A. Ritchie - Doing Oral History - seminal text

Classroom Friendly Examples:

• Interview with Martin Luther King Jr. (March 18, 1964) - Housed at Nunn Center for Oral History. OHMS index allows search of transcript via words used
  

• example 2

• example 3
  

Notes from Oral History Workshop UWM (August 26, 2015) (same as UW-Madison agenda)

What distinguishes oral history from other forms of oral storytelling? (Troy Reeves)

• goes deeper than StoryCorp through prepared history interview preparation
• gathers and preserves the original interviews and makes them available to others
• provides written transcripts for other researchers/historians to use
  
• aimed at specificity about topics not just topic coverage of general stories
  

Project planning (Troy Reeves)

• How do you start an oral history project? (Begin at the end; therefore the title question)
• Prepare for three or more interviews on a particular topic
• What does "done" look like"? (Objective 
• Who can help us? (e.g. local, community leaders, Wisconsin Humanities Organization, archives/library, types of media)
• "Proof of concept" legitimizing the project (e.g. "I've done oral history work on surviving Korean War veterans, now I want to do oral history research with surviving Vietnam veterans")
  
• Things to think about when doing an oral history interview:
• Ask good questions (begin with open ended questions that allow interviewees to expand upon ideas)
• Listen (active listening with brain and heart that open up productive "follow-up" questions)
• Pay attention to silences and moments when interviewees stop.  Resist filling in the gaps
  
• Do your research beforehand so that you are educated on the topic and can ask questions that are specific to that person

Oral History and Digital Access (Doug Boyd)

• popular use of the term "oral history" - often conflated with the word "interview" (e.g. Oral History of Rick Springfield)
  
• Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History - University of Kentucky
  
• metadata (curation, preservation and dissemination) aspects of oral history is difficult and underfunded
• Content DM - ("a repository infrastructure") Digital Collection Management System
  
• Oral histories stored in archives are often still underused because "oral histories are a challenging information package." -- We need text-based transcripts of oral histories for efficient discovery of oral narratives

(very expensive (approx $120-200/hr)

• Digital libraries need to stop re-inventing the wheel so that we can capitalize and build on what we have
• OHMS is not meant to be a repository rather it is mean to make your repository better. You import a sound file, index it, then export it and store it back in your repository -- "OHMS is an affordable way to make oral histories accessible"