Oral history study tour Week 2

August 10th, 2009 by ssummersmorrow in Uncategorized

WEEK 2

After Chelmsford I travelled to Northampton. Before leaving Australia I arranged to meet with team members of the Northamptonshire Black History Association. The work they do with oral history is inspiring and I especially love the way they have linked their oral history collection to the UK national curriculum. I met with 3 members of the team and had an illuminating time discussing the work of the association and going through their set up and resources. It was lovely as well to talk to practitioners of oral history who are also educators. At NSW Oral History Association meetings I have only met one other teacher; most members are journalists, radio and television producers, writers, librarians and archivists. It was very satisfying to discuss teaching and learning resource issues.

The NBHA records Black (African, Asian, Carribean) history and the resources they produce are designed to engage Northamptonshire students but are also relevant to any student of History in the UK. Unfortunately we can’t listen to their recordings in Australia because mini disc technology was used and the recordings are not online but some of their excellent resources are free to download from their website so I’m including the link on the TAFE website. I showed them our site and they were very encouraging.

I also got a few interview recording hints. For example they discussed the rationale behind not editing recordings – leave them be as historical records. This is something I’ve noticed about the interviews I’ve been listening to in general in England. In the NSW OHA meetings the topic of editing invariably comes up. They also said that the TAFE website is actually an archive and this made me realise I’ve got quite a lot of work to do to get the accompanying info up to scratch.

In Norwich at the Norfolk Record Office I was given a guided tour of the vast facilities for audio and oral history recordings for their region. Security was very strict, to go to the cafe to buy a cup of tea required getting a pass! The NRO is aiming to have all their recordings online so we can’t access these from Australia at the moment but I’m including a link to the site because the NRO website has relevant educational resources for History students. At the NRO it was good to discuss technical aspects of digital recording and I was given some good advice on equipment. They also told me they leave “all the bits in” because the focus for the recording is the recording of history. This makes me very relieved because I find editing audio files a truly horrible and daunting job. However on the website I will still take out the ” testing testing 123 etc” as I don’t think the recording is compromised and the listener is more likely to be immediately engaged. I also spent many happy hours listening to oh recordings in their sound room.

At the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland I listened to some very old reel to reel recordings. The staff was lovely and helpful and persisted in setting up the old sound system. I listened to a selection of oral recordings including one done by school children. In the UK all recordings are valued and sought for inclusion in collections. I was very excited by my time here because I made a copy of the way they archive the hundreds of collections they hold. Being able to see how they archive the files was wonderful because even though I’ve been immersed in oral history for a long time I haven’t seen the means of archiving the files until coming to this office. I now know what to do on the TAFE website in the Oral History Recordings section.

It’s very fortunate I use a NAVMAN to get around because so far, apart from London, every place I’ve visited has been in an industrial area or remote hall.