Using Oral History in Community History Projects

by Laurie Mercier, Madeline Buckendorf

This publication offers concrete suggestions for planning, organizing, and undertaking oral history in community settings. Provides a step-by-step guide to project planning and establishing project objectives, with suggestions for identifying resources and securing funding.

70 pages, Paperback

First published August 3, 2010

Reviews

[Melia Dayley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives advice and guidance for oral histories that will definitely prove useful to those who take on any oral history project. The first two chapters detail all the different aspects of a project and what needs to e done to make a history successful. It's an honest book as well and tells the hard, not so fun parts about oral histories as well. The last chapter teaches by way of example through the different stories of people conducting oral histories in the pat couple of decades.
Like I said, this book is no doubt helpful and insightful to anyone going to start oral histories for the first time or if they are an experienced historian.

[Jess Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Laurie Mercier's book is a great introductory pamphlet for those interested in starting a small community oral history project. Mercier outlines some important issues, like community involvement, funding issues, time commitments, and more. That said, anyone looking to launch a comprehensive community oral history project should really invest time into reading some of the works mentioned in Mercier's Suggested Resources, like the work by Dunaway and Baum, or Perks and Thompson, or Thompson. This one just falls short.

[Samantha Worden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Using Oral Histories in Community History Projects is a great introduction into oral history projects focused around a community. Laura Mercier and Madeline Buckendorf walk you through the process in this quick rea. Published in 2010 this book is part of a series focused around providing insight into performing oral history interviews. Mercier is a Professor of History at Washington State University and hold a Pd.D from the University of Oregon, while little information can be obtained on the second author. Overall this book provides a great introduction into the process of preparing for oral histories, but lacks more in depth information on once you are performing the interview.

The book is focused into three key sections, each one with its own focus helping to add to the book. Starting with section one entitled Planning, Organizing, and Implementing a Community Oral History Project which goes through and explains all the background work an individual must do prior to interviewing. The second section entitled Problems Common to Community Oral History Projects covers exactly as the title suggests problems many individuals face when trying to do a project such as this. The last sections entitled Sample Community Oral History Projects goes through a few successful projects helping the reader to see real world examples of success with these style of projects.

Throughout Using Oral Histories in Community History Projects the reader is shown how to start and properly plan out doing an oral history project focused around a community. It covers areas that many individuals may not think of offhand such as gaining trust within a region, or making sure you respect the culture of the community.(29) Although these things are not typically thought of as most individuals try to be respectful it’s vital to remember when you are hoping to have interviews with peoples. This is simply one example throughout the book but helps to show the value that the book provides for those just starting a project. It also provides warnings that many projects focused on receiving oral histories tend to fail because they simply do not plan, this is important to keep in mind as an individual moves forward. Thus this book provides a great oversight into starting and working through community oral history projects.
Although providing a great starting background for potential oral historians this book does fail to offer advice on performing the best interview you can. The book provides limited instruction for the process once performing the interviews, such as guidance on questions. Questions can be difficult for an individual just starting out in the field and the book does provide other sources for guidance it does not provide much in the way of actual guidelines or suggestions. Providing a multitude of other sources though help again guide students into seeing other potential authors and former historians to help develop your own strategy. This does pose problems though as it leads the reader into having to potentially purchase more resources to help build their base understanding of community oral history projects.

Overall Using Oral Histories in Community History Projects is a good basis for the preparation of performing oral histories, but does not have as much information as possible to help with the interview itself during it. Focusing on providing the first corner stone for a student or budding professional this book appears in many journal articles and books that use oral histories. Its overview is excellent for those just beginning on this journey and as a starting student helped to guide me in the right direction. I rate this book at 4 out of 5 stars due this help with initiating the process, but due to the lack of help with the most difficult part the questions was not able to give it a full five star rating.

[Carlos Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Using Oral History in Community History Projects is a guide intended for people that have previously performed some sort of interview and are on to bigger projects that encompass whole communities. The popularity of oral histories is on the rise as technology advancements allow the interview to be stored for a long time. The authors of the book, Laurie Mercier, PhD in history and Madeline K Buckendorf, a woman that has worked in public history for 25 years, wrote this book to inform, direct, and prepare people for an oral history that is intended for a larger project. Strengths in this book are the number of examples of large community projects that succeeded and the resources section. The weaknesses are that the book does not show enough examples of projects that failed and it does not really mention anything about conducting the interview itself.

Besides the acknowledgments, introduction, and suggested resources sections, the book is split into three sections. The first section of the book is primarily about preparing and getting everything ready although this section contains information regarding the processing, storing, and the ‘after’ of the interview. The second section of the book warns readers of problems, the many ways to avoid or fix them, and about the large project consisting of recruiting and training volunteers. The third and final large section of the book gives examples of previous community projects that succeeded. Despite the smaller size of about 61 pages of total content, the book has a lot of useful information.

The first strength in the book is that it provides examples of projects that worked. This motivates readers and assures them that many projects work out in the end. The examples of real life projects also give the reader ideas for how to conduct their own project and thoughts about how their project can evolve. Another strength found in the book was the suggested resources section. This was very helpful as it allowed the reader to have easy access to more specific information like sample questions. This section is a clear indicator that the authors wanted the audience to have more specific information so they could be successful in their projects.

Although the book did good in providing the examples of projects that worked, it overshadowed the fact that these large projects can fail. Even though there is a whole section dedicated to solving problems and small anecdote of a man failing and hindering the chances of future historians, it is important for the audience to know of more specific real-life examples so that they can know what to avoid directly. Adding failed projects would also show the reader that there is a chance their project could fail. The title of the book states that it will use oral history community history projects. The book does not provide much guidance in conducting the oral interview. Although the book is for people that are experienced in conducting oral interviews, a refresher would not have been a bad idea.

This book is important because it shows the importance of a small oral interview. The importance of that single event is then translated to the larger community project. Without that single interview or piece, the overall community project would be much different. Although there were many strengths in the book that were not mentioned, the strengths that were used in this review outshine the weaknesses. This book would be something that should be read by anyone wanting to conduct a larger project using oral histories. Because of this, I would recommend it to anyone in that situation and I give this book a 4 out of 5 rating.

[JonathanBorchardt]

I must say, as I've been reading this pamphlet its become more and more apparent jut how much work goes into recording, storage, and the organization that goes into an oral history project. The first section in particular and its mentioning of the planning required for a successful project drove home the shear quantity of conceptual planning of any project. What seemed most unique to me is the purposeful avoidance of redundancy, as opposed to my experience in scientific academia where more evidence of the same findings only further substantiates it. From what I've read I feel reluctantly excited to see just what are classwork will involve and where it will take us.

[Breezy Hardman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall this book was incredibly informative about what to do when starting and completing and oral history project. The book gives good examples, but in my opinion there are too many. A few less would have still provided adequate information about troubleshooting during your oral history project. Overall very helpful and I would recommend for people starting a community oral history project of their own!