LibGuides: Caring for Personal Archives: Oral History Interviews

Donate Your Oral History Interviews

If you have recorded oral history interviews or are planning a new project, UNO Libraries' Archives and Special Collections is a potential archival repository for those oral histories. Contact Amy Schindler, Director of Archives and Special Collections, to discuss a potential donation.

Oral History Training

Sample Forms from Archives and Special Collections
Contact Archives and Special Collections for sample agreement and biographical information forms.
Class Instruction
Contact archivists in Criss Library's Archives and Special Collections to discuss integrating oral histories into a course.
Community Training
UNO's Criss Library Archives and Special Collections periodically offers training sessions. Contact archivists to inquire about future training opportunities.

Equipment Available from the Library

Computers and Media Equipment from the Library
List of computers, laptops, software, audio recorders, cameras, microphones, and other equipment available in the library and for checkout.

Oral History Best Practices

Oral History Association: Remote Interviewing Resources
The following resources are a product of the COVID-19 pandemic and the requirement to cease face-to-face interviewing for the health of both narrator and interviewer. By March 2020, many of us found ourselves sheltering in place, trying to learn how to do our jobs from home. For those working in oral history, remote interviewing became a pathway to continue essential oral history work. This guide is meant to be a resource to practitioners as they work through the numerous questions that arise with this method.
Oral History Association: Principles and Best Practices for Oral History
Oral history refers both to a method of recording and preserving oral testimony and to the product of that process. It begins with an audio or video recording of a first person account made by an interviewer with an interviewee (also referred to as narrator), both of whom have the conscious intention of creating a permanent record to contribute to an understanding of the past. A verbal document, the oral history, results from this process and is preserved and made available in different forms to other users, researchers, and the public. A critical approach to the oral testimony and interpretations are necessary in the use of oral history.

The Oral History Association encourages individuals and institutions involved with the creation and preservation of oral histories to uphold certain principles, professional and technical standards, and obligations. These include commitments to the narrators, to standards of scholarship for history and related disciplines, and to the preservation of the interviews and related materials for current and future users.
OHA: Oral History in Education
Guidance for 4-12 classroom and adult educators.
OHA: Archiving Oral History: Manual of Best Practices
This document is intended to be viewed in context as an addendum to the Oral History Association’s Principles and Best Practices. It is important to note that this document is not just meant for professionally trained archivists or practitioners working with a traditional repository. Oral history is both created and cared for by a broad and diverse set of practitioners, including community organizers, independent researchers, affiliated faculty, storytellers, policymakers, journalists, writers, librarians, and families.
OHA: Information about IRBs
The relationship of oral history to human subject research regulations has been widely debated since the 1990s, in particular whether oral history should be reviewed by Institutional Review Boards, or IRBs. Revisions to the U.S. Department Health and Human Services “Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects” (known as the Common Rule) in 2019 now exclude oral history from IRB review through a strict definition of research. The exclusion is related in the final regulations under section “§46.102

Oral History Resources

UCI Libraries Oral History Toolkit
A free resource designed by the Special Collections and Archives Team for our community members, whether you are interested in conducting a single oral history interview or implementing a large-scale project to document a community or historical event. These six modules can be adapted and scaled to your specific needs. We highlight resources that our community members continue to request, such as sample consent forms, strategies for enhancing access and long-term preservation.
An Introduction to Oral History and Genealogy Projects, UNC Chapel Hill Libraries
Baylor Institute for Oral History
Through dynamic, recorded interviews, oral history preserves the stories of individuals who helped create the fabric of history and whose lives, in turn, were shaped by the people, places, events, and ideas of their day.

The Institute for Oral History has recorded and preserved oral histories since 1970, earning along the way a strong reputation for multidisciplinary outreach to both academic scholars and community historians by providing professional leadership, educational tools, and research opportunities.
Oral History Archive: Indiana University Bloomington
The CDRP’s Oral History Archive holds the first-person testimonies of more than 2,000 contributors, and new projects continue to be added. Its range of interviews spans more than a century’s worth of history and memory. The topics are principally focused on Indiana and the Midwest. Economic histories, community histories, occupational studies, immigrant histories, and IU-related projects are among the strengths of the archive’s collections.
T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, LSU Libraries
Resources for students and other researchers considering an oral history project.
Oral History Interview Guidelines: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (pdf)
The Smithsonian Folklife and Oral History Interviewing Guide (pdf)
OHA: Web Guides to Doing Oral History

Oral History During the Pandemic

The Oral History Review, Volume 47, No. 2 (2020)
This 2020 issue of The Oral History Review includes 7 articles about conducting oral history interviews in the time of COVID the contents of which are also relevant to doing interviews during or related to any traumatic events. This includes "“First, Do No Harm”: Tread Carefully Where Oral History, Trauma, and Current Crises Intersect."
Oral History Association: Remote Interviewing Resources
The following resources are a product of the COVID-19 pandemic and the requirement to cease face-to-face interviewing for the health of both narrator and interviewer. By March 2020, many of us found ourselves sheltering in place, trying to learn how to do our jobs from home. For those working in oral history, remote interviewing became a pathway to continue essential oral history work. This guide is meant to be a resource to practitioners as they work through the numerous questions that arise with this method.

Why do oral history?

Getting started

Preparing for the interview and doing research

Writing interview questions

Conducting the interview

Oral History Collections in UNO Libraries' Archives and Special Collections

Reflections in Time
The Reflections in Time interviews of UNO people profile pages include a photo, description of the contents of the interview, brief biography, and link to the video recording available online.
LGBTQ+ Oral History Collection
The LGBTQ+ Oral History Collection is the home for oral history interviews conducted with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual individuals from various communities with a focus on those with a connection to Omaha, Nebraska. The interviews were consciously collected to be part of UNO’s Queer Omaha Archives.
Nebraska Black Oral History Project
The 32 interviews span a wide range of subjects, including civil rights efforts at the University of Nebraska, the work of Nebraska State Senator Edward Danner, school desegregation, and labor conditions.
Interviews conducted over a two-year period, 1980-1982, for a project funded by the Nebraska Committee for the Humanities, and sponsored by the Black Studies Department, UNL; The Great Plains Black [History] Museum; and the Nebraska Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Interviewees were chosen for four research areas: Outstate Nebraska, Lincoln, Older Omaha Residents, and Active members of the Omaha Black Community. Sound recordings and transcripts are available.
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Interviewees: Raymond Botts, Beulah Bradley, Bertha Calloway, Mary Chapman, Bessie Chism, Jennifer (Scott) Clark, Anna Danner, Izora Douglas, Ruby Douglas, Earl Douglas, Darryl Eure, Dorothy Eure, Ellyce Hariston, Buddy Hogan, C. Dennis Holland, R. F. Jenkins, Lerlean N. Johnson, Ethel Kirtley, Preston Love, Wayne Lowden, John Mackey, Mae Manion, Lawrence McVoy, Art McWilliam, Charlie May Moore, Rowena Moore, Rodney Mullen, Frank Peak, Lois Price, David Rice, Marie Robinson, Wright Robinson, Charles Washington, Marla Jane (McCaine) West, Mary Young
Women in Omaha Oral History Interviews
UNO History professor Dr. Elaine Nelson's students collected oral history interviews in spring 2017 for a course that resulted in the exhibit "Women in Omaha: A Biographical Sketch Through History" in January-July 2018 at the Durham Museum in Omaha. The interviews were collected from Omaha women and other people who knew the women such as descendants. Women included in the exhibition were: Dr. Jacqueline St John, Rita Melgares, JD, Ella Jean Rogers, Sarah Joslyn, Octa Keen, MSN, Rose Blumkin, Linda Garcia-Perez, Edwina Justus, Kimi Takechi, Margaret Suchy, Ashleigh Buch, SSGT, and narrator CM. The course was History 4060/8066 : History of Women in America, 1875-1992.
African American and Jewish Collaboration and Conflict Oral History Interviews
UNO adjunct instructor Jeannette Gabriel’s students collected oral history interviews in fall 2018 for the course History 2990: African-American and Jewish Collaboration and Conflict. The interviews were collected from Jewish and African American residents of Omaha. Individuals interviewed were: A’Jamal Byndon, Tuffy Epstein, Richard Fellman, and Beth Brown Gershowich.
American Indian Oral History and Omaha Folklore Project Oral History Collection
The American Indian Oral History and Omaha Folklore Project Oral History Collection contains oral history interviews of Native Americans in Omaha, Nebraska as well as interviews collected as part of a program called the Oral History Collection of the Omaha Folklore Project. The interviews cover the cultures and personal histories of interviewees in the U.S. as well as leaving Europe in the first half of the 20th Century. Topics of discussion include life in Omaha, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and day-to-day life. Those interviewed were of Native American, Polish, German, Swedish, and other ethnic or national descents.
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The following information about the Oral History Collection of the Omaha Folklore Project was provided by UNO History professor Michael Tate: "This collection of several dozen taped interviews was assembled during the mid-1970s by mostly undergraduate UNO students under the direction of Dr. Michael Tate of the History Department. These tapes have not been transcribed, but each tape has a file folder containing an outline of the main points of the interview. These contain unique and detailed information about Omaha, Nebraska and rural towns from WWI through WWII." Prof. Tate provided the following information about the American Indian Oral History Taped Interviews portion of the collection: "This collection of several dozen taped interviews was assembled during the mid-1970s. Virtually all were conducted by UNO graduate students under the direction of Dr. Michael Tate of the UNO History Department. Most of the interview were with Native Americans who talked about education, health care, reservation life, urban life and a host of other relevant topics. These were mostly interviews with Lakota (Sioux), Omaha, and Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) tribal people, but also include other tribal representations. A few of the interviews have been fully transcribed but the majority contain detailed outlines of what is contained in each separate interview. Many of the interviews deal with the militant activities of the American Indian Movement during that era. Several also were conducted with judges and law enforcement officers who dealt with the controversial trials following AIM's occupation of Wounded Knee."
Hank Umemoto and George Uchida Oral History Interview
UNO graduate student Byrony Forbes interviewed Hank Umemoto and George Uchida on April 6, 2013, as part of the research for her master’s thesis about romantic and sexual relationships in Japanese American camps during World War II. In addition to sharing information about their experiences as teenagers at Manzanar incarceration center during WWII, Umemoto and Uchida shared other typical information about their families before, during, and after incarceration such as information about jobs and entertainment like dances.