Oral History Training

The Rainbow History Project
Preserving Our Community's History

Below is the agenda for the oral history training sessions: DISCUSSION Oral history, not interviewing

Collecting stories: groups/people not represented, aspects of life not otherwise collected
Untargeted vs. targeted: looking for stories, memories of being in our community in DC
Facilitating NOT directing: NOT interviewing
Documentors, not interviewers; narrators, not interviewees

OHP Collection:

Policies, Updating the List, Referring new narrators, Submitting tapes and summaries, Giving access

The Process

Setting Up the Session

Contacting the narrator: why we want her or his story, what we'll do with it, narrator's control of length, content, use

Locations/Times: quiet, comfortable space at a time that works for both

Background research: period events, club list, general gay history knowledge, sources

Getting Started

Greet, get settled, get the paperwork out of the way. Do they have a picture for the file?

Positions: it's usually better to sit at an angle rather than directly across from the narrator. Some people find looking directly at you or the tape recorder is
distracting or too intimate.

Dating & labeling the tape: " Today is .... 2001, narration by ..."

Opening gambits: how did you get here? how did you find the gay/lesbian/bi/trans community and where did you first go?

The Story

Listening: looking at the narrator, making supportive comments/noises

Interjecting, not interrupting

Note-taking: for interjecting other storylines,

Keeping it going

Coming out

Cruising/Meeting places

Events (Prides, marches, AIDS, …

Winding Up

Follow-up tapings OK?

Next steps: copying, transcribing, indexing. Do they want a tape copy? How to get it to them?

Other narrators

Tape: labeling, storing, sending to the Project

Tape summary

The Collection

Copying, Storing, Indexing, Transcribing

PRACTICE SESSION

Getting started - The story - Winding up - What's next

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