Oral history study tour final blog post

August 10th, 2009 by ssummersmorrow in Uncategorized

Final project blog

It’s been about 12 days since my last post and this is my last. Having internet access has been much harder to get than I would ever have imagined and even when I’ve gone to “wifi free” zones in cafes, service stations and public spaces I have had to join up and this of course takes precious battery time.

In Sunderland I went to Living History North East. It was marvellous! I was able to speak with the director and her staff at length and learned about how they set up and collate oral histories. As well as audio recordings they do video oral hstories. Video Oral histories look very effective but I’m not inclined to use them (as are many oral historians) because of the added technical requirements such as lighting and the considerable expense. LHNE link relevant collections to the UK curriculum so their focus is practical application of the historical material they gather; I was very impressed. Living History North East is not connected to a council so it is a relatively small organisation and all their pursuits are historical. For example, they do classroom re-enactments with school groups in their offices which are located in a 1798 fully restored Charity school with attached mistresses’ house. What a treat! Most of the places I’ve visited have been in industrial areas. I was given several published oral history projects as examples which will be very useful.

I stayed in Glasgow for 6 days. The University of Strathclyde houses the Scottish Oral History Centre. I spoke with the director of the centre and gathered material of use to the development of the TAFE NSW Sutherland Oral History Project. The SOHC was established in 1995 as a research and training centre designed primarily to promote best practice methodology in oral history in Scotland.

The University of Strathclyde also hosted the 2009 UK Oral History Conference. I was both an attendee and presenter of a paper. The conference was an amazing opportunity to network, promote the TAFE project, gather materials and learn. I made many new friends who have a passion for oral history. The keynote speaker, Professor Stephen High from Canada was inspirational. He promotes the use and application of oral history recordings. He argues that there is little point in creating archives of thousands of hours of oh recordings if they are not used and easily accessible. I felt validated because the fundamental premise behind the TAFE NSW Sutherland College Oral History Project is the application of oral history to learning resources for adult Language and Literacy students and NSW curriculum in an easily accessible format.

My paper was very well received and some very nice adjectives were used to describe the wiki website.

Just outside Glasgow I did some research at the interestingly named “Here We Are” oh project. Cairndow is a village community keeping the history of their community alive through the use, primarily, of oral history. They gave me some fantastic advice and documents on how they structure the gathering of information. In many respects Sutherland College is a small community and the ideas are pertinent.

After Glasgow I made my way to the North West Sound Archive in Clitheroe. The complex was in the grounds of Clitheroe Castle built in Norman times – wow! The director and staff were lovely, helpful and encouraging. I bought 2 of their “theme packs”; on Christmas and Easter and I hope to use the ideas for lesson materials for ABE students – linked to the website. I learned about their training methods and they kindly gave me their entire training manual used for anyone who wants to learn about interviewing. As well they gave me a copy of their summary sheet. Help like this makes a big difference as time is saved. I showed them how I use a digital pen to help with summaries of recordings and they thought it was terrific and valid new technology.

In Redruth in Cornwall I did research at the Cornish and Visual Archive. They have an extensive collection on World War 2 reminiscences. One of the interesting things I’ve noticed in England is that the general population often alludes to this war; it remains in people’s minds. I gathered some very good resources here which will help with archiving the oral histories in Sutherland’s website.

Tomorrow I leave for Australia. My study tour has been fantastic.