Research Guides: Oral History Collaborations and Project Resources: General Oral History Resources

Websites and Online Resources

Principles and Best Practices for Oral History
This guide from the Oral History Association goes in depth about the methods and recommended approach for conducting oral histories. Topics include: copyright, interview process, long term preservation, and usability.
Oral History in the Digital Age
Oral History in the Digital Age connects you to the latest information on digital technologies pertaining to all phases of the oral history process.
H-OralHist--listserve
H-Oralhist is a member of the H-Net, Humanities & Social Sciences On-Line initiative. H-Oralhist is a network for scholars and professionals active in studies related to oral history. It is affiliated with the Oral History Association.
The HistoryMakers
The HistoryMakers is a national non-profit research and educational institution committed to preserving and making widely accessible the untold personal stories of both well-known and unsung African Americans.
Oral History In the Liberal Arts (OHLA)
OHLA is an undergraduate research framework for community-engaged teaching and learning using oral history & digital scholarship. OHLA supports digital projects across the Great Lakes Colleges Association and Global Liberal Arts Alliance, curates tutorials and pedagogical resources, and offers trainings at Antioch College.
History Matters: The US Survey Course on the Web
Designed for high school and college teachers and students of U.S. history survey courses, this site serves as a gateway to web resources and offers unique teaching materials, first-person primary documents, and guides to analyzing historical evidence.
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History Matters was first developed in 1998 by the American Social History Project/Center for Media & Learning, City University of New York, and the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, with initial funding from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Over the past several years, it has become a highly regarded gateway to web resources as well as a repository of unique teaching materials, first-person primary documents, and guides to analyzing historical evidence for high school and college students and teachers of American history.

Oral History Organizations

Southern Oral History Program, UNC Chapel Hill:
Since 1973, the Southern Oral History Program has worked to preserve the voices of the southern past. We have collected 6,000 interviews with people from all walks of life—from mill workers to civil rights leaders to future presidents of the United States
Oral History Association
Since 1966, the Oral History Association has served as the principal membership organization for people committed to the value of oral history. OHA engages with policy makers, educators, and others to help foster best practices and encourage support for oral history and oral historians.
Baylor Institute for Oral History
The Institute for Oral History creates oral history memoirs by preserving a sound recording and transcript of interviews with individuals who are eyewitnesses to history. Together with their interviewees, they document memories representing the diversity of American society and encompassing varied topics of social and historical significance.
Columbia Center for Oral History Research
As one of the world's leading centers for the practice and teaching of oral history, the Columbia Center for Oral History Research seeks to record unique life histories, document the central historical events and memories of our times, provide public programming, and teach and do research across the disciplines. CCOHR is housed within the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE).

Family and Personal History

Black Family Digital Resources
The Association for the Study of African American Life and History created this digital resource for African Americans who wish to preserve their families history. This guide contains tips on conducting oral histories with relatives and preserving these recordings for future generations.
StoryCorps : The Great Thanksgiving Listen
The Great Thanksgiving Listen encourages young people—and people of all ages—to create an oral history of our times by recording an interview with an elder, mentor, friend, or someone they admire. Interviews are archived with permission with the Library of Congress.