Abstract
In 1978, Paul Thompson stated that “the tape recorder not only allows history to be taken down in spoken words but also presented through them … The words may be idiosyncratically phrased, but all the more expressive for that. They breathe life into history.”1 Like many others, I was drawn to oral history by the power, emotion, and the content conveyed in the recorded voice, the expression of first hand memories tangled up in the engagement of an interview, culminating as recorded narrative performance. Folklorist Kenneth S. Goldstein began the influential book A Guide for Field Workers in Folklore with the reminder, “The basis of any scholarly discipline is the materials with which it deals. Without such materials there can be no subject for scholarship.” 2 The professional field of oral history consists of scholars and practitioners from a variety of disciplinary and theoretical backgrounds. What consistently unifies this group is the “material with which it deals”: the recorded voice, the interview. We have staunchly defended oral history’s relevance and reliability through the decades, yet, with few exceptions, the orality/aurality that defined our material was consistently stripped away in the textual act of archival use and scholarly communication.
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Notes
Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 18.
Kenneth S. Goldstein, A Guide for Field Workers in Folklore (Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates, 1964), 1.
Michael Frisch, “Oral History and the Digital Revolution: Toward a Post-documentary Sensibility,” in The Oral History Reader, 2nd edition, ed. Robert B. Perks and Alistair Thomson (London: Routledge, 2006), 102.
Doug Boyd, “Case Study: Noise Reduction and Restoration for Oral History — The Stars of Ballymenone,” in Oral History in the Digital Age, ed. Doug Boyd, Steve Cohen, Brad Rakerd, and Dean Rehberger (Washington, DC: Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2012). http://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2012/06/noise-reduction-and-restoration-for-oral-history/.
Henry Glassie, The Stars of Ballymenone (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006), 502–503.
Henry Glassie, Passing the Time in Ballymenone: Culture and History of an Ulster Community (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995), 85.
Louis Starr, “Oral History,” in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, Vol. 20, ed. Allen Kent et al. (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1977), 443.
Dale E. Treleven, “Oral History, Audio Technology and the TAPE System,” The International Journal of Oral History, 2 (1) (1981): 26.
Doug Boyd, “Achieving the Promise of Oral History in a Digital Age,” in The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, ed. Donald Ritchie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 294–295.
Robert B. Perks, “Messiah With the Microphone? Oral Historians, Technology, and Sound Archives,” in The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, ed. Donald Ritchie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 327.
Stephen Robertson, “The Differences Between Digital History and Digital Humanities” Dr Stephen Robertson (Blog), May 23, 2014, http://drstephenrobertson.com/2014/05/23/the-differences-between-digital-history-and-digital-humanities/.
Louis Starr, “Oral History,” in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences Vol. 20, ed. Allen Kent et al. (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1977), 443.
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© 2014 Douglas A. Boyd and Mary A. Larson
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Boyd, D.A. (2014). “I Just Want to Click on It to Listen”: Oral History Archives, Orality, and Usability. In: Boyd, D.A., Larson, M.A. (eds) Oral History and Digital Humanities. Palgrave Studies in Oral History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137322029_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137322029_5
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