1. Oral History Creating It, Storing It, Using It Colin Hyde
East Midlands Oral History Archive
Centre for Urban History
University of Leicester

2. Leicestershire sound recordings: tape clubs, Radio Leicester, oral history projects.
The History of the Tigers - Ladysmith

3. National Collections:
British Library Sounds
Imperial War Museum
Projects:
Archive of American TV
BECTU OH Project - Cinema
Diabetes Stories
Edwardians Online
Foxhunting Past, Present & Future
Suez Oral History Project
Up & Under – Rugby League

4. What does the East Midlands Oral History do?
Encouraging best practice

5. Creating Oral Histories
What might affect the final outcome?
Time and money
How many people? Who?
Is anyone missing?
Digital decisions
Sound recording, .wav files or…
Video
Interviewing technique
How has the interviewer affected the outcome?
Are there gaps?
Paperwork
Clearance to use?
Cataloguing information/metadata

6. Storing Oral Histories
Old technology - two basic questions:
will the magnetic tapes/minidiscs/CDs last another 50 years?
if they do, will there be anything to play the tapes/minidiscs/CDs on?

7. Storing Oral Histories
New technology (‘born digital’)
CD or DVD – still a budget solution
Hard drives, portable or otherwise
LOCKSS – Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe
Network storage, backed up
Will the digital formats be ‘readable’ in future?
Will websites like YouTube survive? Will Cloud storage survive?
Where will it all be in 50 years?

8. Using Oral History How are people using it? Newsletters or bulletins
Talks and lectures.
Oral history books, CDs, DVDs
Websites, including YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud etc.
Audio tours
Academic work
Family history
Education for schools
Museum exhibitions
Reminiscence work
Sound collages, drama, dance, poetry, digital story telling.

9. Using Oral History An example of using an existing archive:
Leicestershire & Rutland in WW1
Very few recordings specifically about WW1
Use typed summaries from 1980s (not yet scanned) that do not have accurate timings
300 recordings mention WW1
Have to listen to many recordings – used 80 eventually
Extract the best clips (ripped off CDs)
Edit into subjects
Takes a huge amount of time!
How to display the sound clips?

10. WW1 Oral Histories How to present this on the web? Soundcloud
My Leicestershire History
EMOHA website

11. Using Oral History
“I Just Want to Click on It to Listen”: Oral History Archives, Orality, and Usability
Douglas A. Boyd
OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer) is a free, open source digital tool that improves the user experience for online oral history. It connects a textual search to the corresponding moment in your online audio or video interview.
Example:

12. Cinema in Melton Mowbray
Colin Hyde
East Midlands Oral History Archive
Centre for Urban History
University of Leicester