Describing Oral Histories

Unlike nearly everything else that we do in archival description, it is imperative that we describe oral histories, especially the rights and restrictions that apply to them, at the item-level as well as at the aggregate.

The following are exceptions to how we describe oral histories as opposed to how we describe other archival materials. All the principles of description and guidelines that are not explicitly mentioned below, for example, providing dates for materials, still apply.

Aggregate description of oral histories

The same rules about collection- and series-level descriptions that apply to other types of materials also apply to oral histories. Additionally, the following points are particular or more emphasized in oral histories:

• If there are any restrictions whatsoever on any of the oral histories within a series or collection, the conditions governing access and conditions governing use notes at the collection- or series-level should indicate that one or more of the oral histories have restrictions, and should refer the researcher to the interview-level notes for details. Do not list out all of the restrictions for each oral history in the collection- or series-level. Example text:

Several of the oral histories in this series have restrictions on access to the full interview. Please see the notes attached to an individual interview for information about restrictions that apply to it.

• The scope and contents note should include information about what topics are covered in the interview. If this is not provided by the interviewer, it may be gleaned by looking at the background file for the interviewer's planned questions.

Descriptive elements for oral histories like biographical notes and agent records should be attached at the highest level for which they apply to the entire unit.

Examples

If an entire collection is about a particular person and it includes oral histories with that person, the biographical note should go at the collection level.

If an entire series consists of materials about a particular person, including or exclusively oral histories, the biographical note should go at the series level.

If a collection or series includes oral history interviews with multiple narrators, the biographical note should go at the interview level.

Interview and instantiation level description of oral histories

Ideally, we should describe an interview or series of interviews (for example, an extended interview conducted between the same two people over the course of several days) as a single logical entity that has different instantiations (for example, a tape recording, a digital recording, and a transcript).

The way oral histories are described depend on use and access restrictions, which may be the same across all instantiations or different from one instantiation to the other.

Interview-level

If all instantiations of a given interview share the same use and restrictions, these should be described and linked at the interview level.

Example An interview that has no restrictions on access to any of its component parts is described at the file-level might have the following title and restriction notes:

Title: Lupita Blythe interviewed by Hazel Smith

Conditions Governing Access: This interview is open for research use without restriction.

Conditions Governing Online Access: The interviewer and narrator for this interview have agreed that it may be placed on the web.

Conditions Governing Use: The interviewer and narrator have dedicated copyright of this interview to the public domain. This agreement is governed by a CC0 (Creative Commons 1.0 Universal) public domain dedication.

For more information see Interview Level Oral History Access and Use Notes.

In addition to access and use notes, the scope and content note for the interview should include a summary as well as information about the documentation available from the interview:

In this interview, Lupita reflects on her early life in South Hadley, as well as her experiences of young adulthood in the Five College system. Interview recorded to the cloud over Zoom. Documentation available from this interview includes a transcript, a video recording, and a background file.

If available, more detailed information about an oral history interview (such as an abstract, interviewer biography, and interviewee biography) may be gleaned from the transcript and repurposed for description in the finding aid.

If there are no restrictions at the instantiation level, the interview level represents the highest aggregation and may be linked directly to its container and/or digital object instances. For ease of paging, it may still be worthwhile to include separate child objects for analog transcripts and recordings.

Instantiation-level

If there are restrictions at the instantiation-level, these should be managed individually and added as children archival objects of the interview-level.

Although this might contradict our practice of providing direct access to digital materials by mirroring titles between archival and digital objects, this hierarchical structure helps to maintain a direct relationship between an instantiation and its specific restriction information. Additionally,, this offers a clear path for Public Services staff and others to find and deliver this material responsibly without having to navigate elsewhere in the finding aid.

Example An interview for which we have digital records consisting of a full digital transcript which is restricted for 20 years, a redacted digital transcript which is unrestricted, an unedited video (both tape-based and digital) which is restricted for 20 years, and a digital version of a redacted video which is unrestricted, as well as a paper background file.

A file-level entry should be created with a title like:

Lupita Blythe interviewed by Hazel Smith

Under this file-level entry should be item-level entries for each of the types of content that needs to be managed individually, and each of these entries would have rights and/or restrictions associated with it. Note this is not the same as having an item-level entry for each format. The titles for the items might be:

Unredacted transcript of interview of Lupita Blythe

Unedited video interview of Lupita Blythe [note: this would have two instances, one a digital object and one a box]

Redacted video interview of Lupita Blythe

Background file for interview of Lupita Blythe by Hazel Smith

Terminology for oral histories

Historically, Smith Special Collections has used the term "narrator" for the person who is being interviewed, and "interviewer" for the person who conducts the interview. Continue to use these terms in plain-English notes.

However, when linking agent records in ArchivesSpace, the relator "Interviewee" is used instead of "narrator."

Titles for oral histories

In general, oral histories should be given a title that places the name of the person being interviewed first, names the person doing the interview, and makes clear what the relationship is between the two. Example of a good oral history title:

Lupita Blythe interviewed by Hazel Smith

Example of an unclear oral history title (try not to do this):

Hazel Smith interview with Lupita Blythe

Conditions governing access and use notes

While generally, we would have only a collection-level conditions governing access note when an entire collection is open, because we have historically had so much confusion with oral histories, we are making an exception to this rule here. For details see Interview Level Oral History Access and Use Notes.

Pseudonyms

For individuals with pseudonyms, the Archival object title should contain only the pseudonym. The real name should not appear at all in ArchivesSpace, not even in internal notes or unpublished records. Only one Agent record should be created, for the pseudonym. Add “(pseudonym)” after the name in the Agent record. Example, “Star (pseudonym).” For more information see Pseudonyms page.