The Oral History Association is pleased to announce the launch of the Oral History in the Digital Age (OHDA) website at ohda.matrix.msu.edu. The website features numerous essays, articles, and videos about best practices in collecting, preserving, and disseminating digital oral histories. This resource a product of an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership project and a collaboration among the Michigan State University Digital Humanities Center, Matrix, Michigan State University Museum, the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center, the American Folklore Society, and the Oral History Association. Seven interdisciplinary working groups composed of experts and practitioners from museums, libraries, and scholarly societies worked to produce recommendations around core topics including intellectual property, transcriptions, digital video, technology, scholarship, preservation, and access. Final recommendations from all groups were compiled and published on the OHDA website as a guide to conducting digital oral history.
The need for this project stems from the way in which twenty-first century, digital technologies are transforming oral history. As mobile devices, digital recorders, online repositories and the like become more prevalent, oral historians need to be educated as to new methods available— as well as the risks and rewards of those methods. The OHDA essay collection is a valuable and timely resource and one that the OHA is proud to be a part of. We welcome you to investigate the sources listed at ohda.matrix.msu.edu