Accessibility of oral history collections: an investigation into current practices and future developments.

Abstract

This study examines the current practices and problems of accessing of oral history collections. It investigates what can be done to improve access and effectiveness of oral history collection holdings if any use and meaningful purpose has to come of these important resources. This is has been by conducting a postal and e-mail questionnaires to repositories of oral history material and by interviewing five professionals involved with the management of these resources from all sectors. A huge amount of material of unedited audio and audio-visual recordings of people recollecting their life’s experiences of has been generated and continues to be generated in libraries, museums and archives in the public or academic sector. The difficult tasks and problems facing many repositories’ when facilitating access and dissemination of these oral history resources are examined. Oral history collections and audio-visual holdings in general are relatively difficult to track down and to use by potential users for various reasons. These range from poor documentation and cataloguing, to promotion and finding aids, and lack of innovation especially towards new technologies. As limited resources are easily absorbed just building the collection, the problem has frequently been bridging the gap between acquisition and use. At the root of many shortfalls in accessibility are the current low profile/low priority status of oral history collections and the correspondent lack of adequate funding and resource allocation. As a consequence existing collections are frequently under-used or unknown. In order to make the existence of these resources meaningful as information resource and fruitful repository assets, they must be made fully accessible. These study offer some suggestions for improving this ranging from the possibilities offered by more sophisticated means of organising and delivering information electronically, the possibility of a national directory, the creation of national cataloguing guidelines and templates, to funding possibilities and much more.

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