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Spectrum Initiative Longitudinal Study
 
  Selected Quotations : Oral History Definitions  

Diverse Personnel in Libraries

Diversity

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Oral Historians: Tasks and Roles

Oral History

Oral History: Definitions

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  • “… oral history—that area where memory, myth, ideology, language, and historical cognition all interact in a dialectical transformation of the word into an historical artifact.” i
  • “… oral history—the search for the ideological and mythic matrix of the cultural consciousness of the society through the development of the idea of history …” ii
  • “Oral history is a science and art of the individual.” iii

i Harris, Alice Kessler, “Introduction,” In Grele, Ronald J., Envelopes of Sound: The Art of Oral History 2nd ed. (Chicago: Precedent Publishing, 1985), 7.
ii Grele, Ronald J., “Movement Without Aim: Methodological and Theoretical Problems in Oral History,” In Grele, Ronald J., Envelopes of Sound: The Art of Oral History 2nd ed. (Chicago: Precedent Publishing, 1985), 143.
iii Portelli, Alessandro (The Battle of Valle Guilia: Oral History and the Art of Dialogue. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 57.