How to Manage a Successful and Sustainable Oral History Project
When starting an Oral History Project there are a few steps you should consider before beginning in order to ensure the long-term access of your project. A consultation with the Digital Scholarship and Technology Services Department (DS&T) is always a great first move towards success. DS&T can provide guidance on creating effective release forms, comprehensive metadata for online access, and workflows for digital preservation submission.
In the past, a major pitfall of oral history projects has been the lack of release forms, making it difficult to publish oral histories in the Digital Library or elsewhere. In addition, the lack of data for each oral history session in a format that can be easily managed and shared has also hindered access.
The DS&T department welcomes the addition of Vassar College Community Oral Histories for inclusion in the Digital Library. We currently have nearly one hundred oral histories available, either open source or exclusively for the Vassar College community. The option for open or Vassar only access can be determined at the onset of your project during the initial consultation.
So what will you need to provide DS&T for inclusion in the Digital Library and digital preservation once the project is complete?
- Audio recordings (WAV and MP3 files) with easy to understand naming conventions
- Release Forms (PDF) with identifiers in the file name to link them to the audio recording file names
- Metadata in a spreadsheet (Google Sheet or Excel) that clearly identifies the audio recording file name each data set refers to. (Example: file name, interviewer name, interviewee name, date recorded, title of recording, description of recording.)
- Completed Digital Records Transfer Form
We will also include images to accompany each recording when available. They should be identified by filename in the metadata spreadsheet with their associated recording.
Available Resources:
To schedule a consultation please contact nscalessa@vassar.edu or request a meeting at https://calendar.app.google/A4Q4XcuPDv38yHeZA
