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

• “The oral historian does not merely transcribe speech but uncovers and engages the various dialogues within the testimony.” ⁱ
• “Oral historians have a unique, personal relationship with the men and women whose life stories provide their source material.” ⁱⁱ
• “Power [in field research] is discernible in three interrelated dimensions: (1) power differences stemming from different positionalities of the researcher and the researched (race, class, nationality, life chances, urban-rural backgrounds); (2) power exerted during the research process, such as defining the research relationships, unequal exchange, and exploitation; and (3) power exerted during the postfieldwork period—writing and representing.” ⁱⁱⁱ
• “As Valerie Yow has emphasized, oral historians need to be self-reflective and self-critical, and to think carefully about how our own background affects which questions are not being asked and why they are not being asked.” ^iv
• “As interviewers we become involved in the creation of a life story and can ourselves become affected by that interaction.” ^v
• “As interviewers we must consider our own motivations and needs, as well as those of the narrator, when undertaking an oral history project, and especially if it is a biographical product.” ^vi
• “As all oral historians know, we are all co-creators of the oral history we participate in, even if simply by our presence.” ^vii
• “The essential art of the oral historian is the art of listening.” ^viii
• “Good interviewers always make information on themselves available on demand in exchange for the information they gather.” ^ix

ⁱ Nutkiewicz, 3.
ⁱⁱ Thomson, Alistair, Sharing Authority: Oral History and the Collaborative Process,” The Oral History Review 30 (1) (Winter/Spring 2003), 23.
ⁱⁱⁱ Wolf, Diane L., “Situating Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork,” in Wolf, ed., Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork (Boulder: Westview Press, Inc., 1996), pp. 1-55.
^iv Yow, Valerie, “Ethics and Interpersonal Relationships in Oral History Research,” OH Review 22:1 (1995): 51-66 In Sitzia, Lorraine, “A Shared Authority: An Impossible Goal?” The Oral History Review 30 (1) (Winter/Spring 2003), 96.
^v Thomson, Alistair, “Memory as a Battlefield: Personal and Political Investments in the National Military Past,” The Oral History Review 22:2 (1995): 55-57 ^vi Sitzia, Lorraine, “A Shared Authority: An Impossible Goal?” The Oral History Review 30 (1) (Winter/Spring 2003), 96.
^vii Wolford, John B., Book review of Boyer, Sarah, comp. In Our Own Words: Stories of North Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1990-1960. Cambridge: City of Cambridge Massachusetts, 1997; Boyer, Sarah, comp. Crossroads: Stories of Central Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1912-2000. Cambridge: Cambridge Historical Commission, In The Oral History Review 30 (1) (Winter/Spring 2003), 123.
^viii Portelli, Alessandro (The Battle of Valle Guilia: Oral History and the Art of Dialogue. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 6`.
^ix Portelli, Alessandro (The Battle of Valle Guilia: Oral History and the Art of Dialogue. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 74.