Designing and Planning your Oral History Project
This course takes place in person and online.
This course, run jointly by the British Library’s oral history department and the Oral History Society, is aimed at anyone who is planning a medium to large scale oral history project, particularly one that will involve managing a number of project interviewers.
It is suitable for project managers, bid writers and academics using oral history in standalone projects, or planning to use oral history as a component within broader community heritage or research activities. The course is not appropriate for sole independent researchers.
Before confirming your place the Training Administrator will contact you for further details about the project you are planning.
Note that this course is preparatory to running an oral history project and is not designed for projects which have already begun. The course does not cover oral history theory and practice, interview methodology and analysis, digital editing or data management. Other courses run by the BL/OHS address all these topics in detail, starting with the Introduction to Oral History course.
Course structure
This training course covers the following areas:
Project rationale and design
• Why are you here? What is the point of project management?
• Understanding your oral history project
• Aims and objectives: who is your audience?
• Research/background: finding other sources, avoiding duplication
• Scope and scale
• What else might you like to collect at the same time
• Preparing for archiving
• Project outputs
People
• Staffing: paid staff, volunteers and how to support them, training
• Project partners: different roles, archive arrangements
• Governance: management and advisory committees
• Interviewees: finding them, selecting them, sharing project information
• Handing over to your Project Manager
• Working with your institution
Risk assessment
• What are the risks that oral history projects face and how can they be mitigated? Practical group work and discussion
Technical requirements
• Recording equipment
• File sharing workflow
• Data storage and back-up
• Documentation workflow
• Audio editing and outputs
Money
• Budget planning: practical session
• Evaluation and targets
• Sharing your ideas on funding sources
The focus of the day is grounded in participants’ own projects and ideas-sharing within the group.
Each course is led by two BL/OHS-accredited trainers.
Online courses are delivered over Zoom video call. Each course is run over two consecutive morning sessions, 9.30am – 1.15pm.
In-person courses are delivered at the British Library in London. The training takes place over a full-day session, 10am – 5.30pm, with breaks throughout the day.
To view the course schedule with timings click on one of the available training dates below.
Course prices
2026
Full attendance fee: £162.00
OHS member fee: £119.00
OHS membership starts at £39 per year for an individual. For more information and to sign up follow this link to the memberships page.
How to book
Please note:
- There will be no refunds for cancelled places
- Due to high demand and in order to ensure that each course has attendees with a variety of interests and backgrounds, a maximum of two people from any one institution may attend each course.
The following OHS training dates are available:
November 2026
Designing and planning your oral history project (Online)
If there are currently no dates found for courses please contact the training administrator if you would like to be notified of any future dates.
