Table of Contents

Introduction and Acknowledgments

1. An Oral History of Our Time
Memory and Oral History
Public History and Oral History

2. Setting Up An Oral History Project
Funding and Staffing
Equipment
Processing
Legal Concerns
Archiving and the Internet

3. Conducting Interviews
Preparing for the Interview
Setting up the Interview
Conducting the Interview
Concluding the Interview

4. Using Oral History for Research
Oral Evidence
Theory
Publishing Oral History

5. Videotaping Oral History
Setting and Equipment
Processing and Preserving Video Recordings
Video Documentaries, Exhibits, and the Internet

6. Preserving Oral History in Archives and Libraries
Managing Oral History Collections
Sound Recordings
Digital Oral Archives
Donated Interviews
Legal Considerations
Public Outreach

7. Teaching Oral History
Oral History in Elementary and Secondary Schools
Oral History in Undergraduate and Graduate Education
Institutional Review Boards

8. Presenting Oral History
Oral History Web Sites
Community History
Family Interviewing
Therapeutic Uses of Oral History
Museum Exhibits
Radio and Television
Performance


Appendix 1: Best Practices of the Oral History Association.
Appendix 2: Sample Legal Release Forms
Notes and References
Bibliography
Internet Resources
Index

About the Author

Donald A. Ritchie is Historian, U.S. Senate Historical Office; past president of the Oral History Association; editor of the The Oxford Handbook of Oral History and author of Press Gallery: Congress and the Washington Correspondents and Reporting from Washington.

Reviews

"Donald Ritchie...has produced an invaluable manual that will serve research scholars and teachers equally well...Without pretension, Doing Oral History fulfills the promise touted on the jacket cover: to provide 'practical advice and reasonable explanations for anyone.'...[A] significant contribution to making oral history accessible to a wide audience of potential users."--The History Teacher
"Written in a friendly question-and-answer format, this book gives advice for preparing, setting up, and conducting an interview...Ritchie's step-by-step guide will help you preserve your family's experiences for generations to come."--Family Tree
"Ritchie has laid out the fundamentals to guide novices and given long-term practitioners material that will help them re-evaluate their own approaches. This book needs to be on every oral historian's shelf."--Northwest Oral History Association
"This book is not a dustcatcher. It is destined to be dog-eared and full of underlined passages, from the first time you pick it up. In a user-friendly question-and-answer format, much like an oral history interview, Don Ritchie has packed into one modest volume enough practical advice to get an oral history project off the ground, help a novice oral historian conduct a responsible interview, and challenge more experienced oral historians, librarians, and
archivists who might use oral history to think broadly about the impact of what they are doing."--Mid-Atlantic Archivist
"[The] standard work for many years to come."--Public Historian
"Simple, straightforward, and effective...[A] stimulating and formidable work...[I]t is indeed a guide to practice, but it is much more: it is a stepping-off point to the increasingly large universe that oral history pracititioners occupy."--Oral History Review
"[An] all-purpose guide to the entire range of the oral history process...[T]his volume provides extensive background on oral history and its relation to the larger realm of historical inquiry, discusses how oral history interviewing compares with journalistic and other interviewing techniques, and considers the workings of the human memory."--American Archivist
"A definitive guide that provides all the practical advice and explanations needed to turn your ideas and goals into action and to create recordings that illuminate the human experience for generations to come. Definitely recommended."--The Ultimate Puzzle: Family Research
"A comprehensive handbook on the theory, methods, and practice of oral history, based on work by the Oral History Association to revise its professional standards and principles."--Book News, Inc.
"[A] comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the art of oral history."--Oral History in New Zealand