Oral History Projects

Australian Generations Oral History Project, Monash University

‘Australian Generations’ will pioneer new ways of creating, interpreting and presenting oral history. Life history interviews with 300 Australians born between 1920 and 1990 will create a digital audio archive of 1500 hours of recordings which will be hosted by the National Library of Australia. Future researchers will benefit from online access to an immensely rich national oral history collection. The project will also produce two books and one of Australia’s most ambitious radio history series.

Funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage award (‘Australian Generations: Life Histories, Generational Change and Australian Memory’), this project is a partnership between historians from Monash and La Trobe universities, the National Library of Australia and ABC Radio National. Website at http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/australian-generations/

Columbia Center for Oral History

CCOH has one of the largest archives of recorded histories in the world, and it is open to the public. We conduct or collect approximately 300-500 new hours of interview each year – which we then add to that archive. We hold over 8,000 interviews; over 1,000 of these are biographical interviews of major figures in philanthropy, government, human rights, media history, public health, science and medicine.  We also conduct large-scale research and urban history projects as well as government and institutional histories.  CCOH holds one of the largest oral history collections on the New Deal in the country, an expansive history of Social Security Administration, interviews with leaders of the American Civil Rights movements, women’s liberation and equality movements, anti-war movements, legal history, women in the visual arts, the Republican era in China, 1930s Argentina, and more. Website at http://library.columbia.edu/indiv/ccoh.html

East London Legacy 2012: A Living Archive. A research project by the University of East London.

East London Legacy 2012 is an ongoing project; a ‘living archive’ which aims to document the lives of East Londoners towards the hosting of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It will record and reflect on the process of social change in East London arising from hosting of the Games, and the legacy of the games. It will provide contemporary primary research, complemented by a historical strand to offer a comparative perspective on the Games and their history in London.

The archive will contain filmed focus groups and recorded oral histories from people in the five Olympic boroughs, together with relevant documentary sources and key papers arising from the work of London East Research Institute and the Institute for Health and Development. Visit: http://www.uel.ac.uk/ell2012/

The Oral History Society (UK)

The Oral History Society promotes the collection, preservation and use of recorded memories of the past. Website at http://www.oralhistory.org.uk/

 

The Oral History Collection, Hofstra University

The Diverse Suburbs section of this collection includes a variety of different interviews with suburban Long
Islanders describing their work and life experiences. They also discuss the future of Hofstra, Long Island, and race relations. The collection includes thirty two accounts from people from different neighbourhoods on Long Island. Visit: http://www.hofstra.edu/pdf/Library/libspc_oral_history_collections.pdf  to see a list of all the Oral Histories recorded by Hofstra University.