Best Practices and Guidelines for Conducting Oral Histories : Oral History Resources

Doing Oral History is considered the premier guidebook to oral history, used by professional oral historians, public historians, archivists, and genealogists as a core text in college courses and throughout the public history community.

"Oral History and Public Memories" is the only book that explores this relationship, in fourteen case studies of oral history's use in a variety of venues and media around the world.

With extensive examples from both historical and social science literature, this book is a practical guide to methods of recording oral history. The author provides suggestions on a range of techniques from developing a written interview guide and using tape recorders to asking probing questions during in-depth interviews and editing transcriptions. She also covers the ethical and legal issues involved in conducting life-history interviews and elaborates on three different types of oral history projects: community studies, biographies and family histories.

The author offers advice on designing an oral history project and discusses the reliability of oral evidence. This third edition considers the use of new technologies, including video, in the recording of historical information.

The interview is completed, the recorder packed away, and you've captured the narrator's voice for posterity. The bulk of your oral history is finished or is it? Nancy MacKay, archivist and oral historian, addresses the crucial issue often overlooked by researchers: How do you ensure that the interview you so carefully recorded will be preserved and available in the future? MacKay goes carefully through the various steps that take place after the interview transcribing, cataloging, preserving, archiving, and making your study accessible to others.