Oral History Interview

The oral history interview reflects a person's recollection of life experiences, thoughts, and feelings about an event, action, or specific period of time. In the visual arts, such interviews could be crucial for the understanding of an artist's intention and creative conception as well as of the reaction in the community to specific artists and artistic styles or forms of expression. Oral history helps us to understand more clearly the various facets of history in the light of chosen examples from our own community. Under the best of circumstances, you should be able to relate your oral history interview performed in your own community to parallel experiences in world history.

The preparation and planning for your interview is as vital as the actual interview and the follow-up. The subsequent steps should serve as a guideline for conducting oral history interviews:

1. Preparation:

• Choose your subject.
• What information could you obtain from your subject?
• Contact your subject and ask whether the subject is willing to participate.
• Plan your time carefully.
• Obtain a tape recorder and ask for permission to use it before you go to the interview.

2. Interview Manners:

• Be punctual!
• Be prepared (have your questions ready, your equipment in working order and ready, and your notebook ready)!
• Be polite and address the person formally!
• Provide time for your interviewee to answer (be patient if answers take longer than you expected).
• Do not argue with your interviewee or try to correct answers, even if you are sure that the answer is incorrect (oral history is not necessarily about accuracy, but about impressions and feelings).
• End your session by thanking your interviewee.
• Send a thank you note or letter to your interviewee!

3. After the Interview:

• Transcribe the interview tape. You may have to listen to it repeatedly to catch everything that was said.
• Read the transcribed interview carefully watching out for inaccuracies or a possible bias that might have influenced the interviewee's recollection.
• Integrate your findings into your paper or presentation.
• Make sure that you think about additional information necessary that helps you to relate your oral history interview to the history of the time.

A useful internet source on the topic :

Library of Congress Learning Page: Using Oral History. (Updated 09/26/2002) Retrieved at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/oralhist/release.html

Classes that might require an oral history interview:
300-level art history courses