Diverse Personnel in Libraries

Diversity

Identity

Interviewees

Interviewing

Life History

Memory

Mentoring

Oral Historians: Tasks and Roles

Oral History

Oral History: Definitions

Shared Authority

Spectrum Initiative

Storytelling

Trauma

Validity

• “We are in the middle of our stories and cannot be sure how they will end; we are constantly having to revise the plot as new events are added to our lives.” ⁱ
• “An understanding of the dialectical relationship between memory and identity and the ways in which people tell their life stories is important in any life history research.” ⁱⁱ
• “By exploring the ways in which individuals present their life stories we can gain a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between past and present identities, and the ways in which individuals attempt to make sense of their lives.” ⁱⁱⁱ
• “We can use one person’s life story as the means by which not only to understand and investigate his/her construction of his/her stories, but also as a mode for understanding wider social issues and how these are played out in individuals’ lives.” ^iv
• “A life story does not only consist of life experience up to the moment of telling the story: it is also formed by the moment at which to story is told.” ^v
• “The wider meaning of the life story, however, is conveyed not by the individual anecdotes, but by their weaving together.” ^vi

ⁱ Polkinghorne, D.E. Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences. Albany: State University of New York Pres, 1988.
ⁱⁱ Sitzia, Lorraine, “A Shared Authority: An Impossible Goal?” The Oral History Review 30 (1) (Winter/Spring 2003), 100.
ⁱⁱⁱ Hatch, J .A. and R. Wisniewski (eds.). Life History and Narrative. London: Falmer Press, 1995 In Sitzia, Lorraine, “A Shared Authority: An Impossible Goal?” The Oral History Review 30 (1) (Winter/Spring 2003), 100.
^iv Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York:Basics Books, 1998) In Sitzia, Lorraine, “A Shared Authority: An Impossible Goal?” The Oral History Review 30 (1) (Winter/Spring 2003), 100.
^v Mann, Chris, “Family Fables,” In Chamberlain, Mary and Paul Thompson, eds., Narrative and Genre (London; New York: Routledge, 1998), 82.
^vi Ashplant, T. G., “Anecdote as Narrative Resource,” In Chamberlain, Mary and Paul Thompson, eds., Narrative and Genre (London; New York: Routledge, 1998), 105.