Archival management of oral history collections (London)
This course is run jointly by the British Library’s oral history department and the Oral History Society and is aimed at archivists and those managing audio archive material. The course covers the practical, technical and ethical issues around the selection, collection and description of oral history and other recorded personal testimony and spoken word on multiple audio formats. It also explores opportunities that oral history-based partnerships offer archives for community engagement.
Before confirming your place the Training Coordinator may contact you for further details about the audio collections you are working with.
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, only one person from any one institution may book to attend each course.
- There are two methods of payment. You can pay online via PayPal, debit or credit card or you can make an offline payment where an invoice will be sent to your organisation. Please select the appropriate option in the booking form.
- If you choose to pay by invoice please note that payments for training courses will be made to National Life Stories (NLS), and the invoice will be sent by email from NLS within a week of your booking. Contact the Training Coordinator if you require further details for your purchase order number.
- In booking this training course you agree to follow the OHS Code of Conduct.
Please contact the Training Coordinator if you would like to be notified of future dates.
Course Structure
This in-person training course will take place at the British Library. The programme for the course is as follows (please note this is a sample structure and may differ on the day).
Timezone: London, UK
Hourly Schedule
In-person course
- 10:00 - 10:30
- Welcome and introductions
- 10:30 - 10:50
- A brief history of oral history and archiving
- 10:50 - 11:30
- Short break
- 11:30 - 11:45
- Audio formats and digital preservation
- – Identifying what you have (cassettes, reels, DAT, digital files) – Storage (analogue and digital): short-term and long-term – Funding suggestions for digital preservation
- 11:45 - 13:00
- Oral history archiving: legal and ethical issues
- – Laws that affect oral histories (copyright, GDPR, FoI) – Ethics (informed consent, confidentiality, creative commons)
- 13:00 - 14:15
- Lunch (not provided)
- 14:15 - 15:30
- Recording equipment, cataloguing, workflows, documentation
- – Equipment (recorders, microphones) and new technology – Oral history arrangement, accessioning and cataloguing – Documentation that needs to be collected alongside recordings (recording agreements, summaries)
- 15:30 - 15:45
- Short break
- 15:45 - 16:45
- Working with partner projects: some models for engagement
- – Models for acquiring oral history collections – Acting as archive partner for community groups/NLHF projects/academic partners – Working with vulnerable groups
- 16:45 - 17:15
- Access and outreach
- – Providing access (onsite and online) and promoting your oral history collections
- 17:15 - 17:30
- Review of the day, Q&A and feedback
- 06 Nov 2026
- 10:00 am - 5:30 pm
- The British Library
Organizer
-
Camille Johnston
-
Email
[email protected] Oral History Training Administrator
Speakers
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Charlie MorganOral History Archivist at National Life Stories and the British Library; Chair of the OHS Archives and Oral History SIG -
Mary StewartBL/OHS Trainer; OHS Trustee; Lead Curator of Oral History at the British Library; Director of National Life StoriesI am Lead Curator of Oral History at the British Library and Director of National Life Stories, the oral history fieldwork charity. It has been my privilege to be a Trustee of the Society since 2008, and I recently led a review of the Society’s governance. I have helped to organise many OHS conferences and events, I sit on the Society’s Finance Sub-Committee and am an accredited Oral History Society/British Library trainer specialising in courses on Archival Management of Oral History and Data Protection. As part of the British Library’s oral history team I work to add diverse voices from across the UK to the Library’s Sound Archive, particularly through academic and community partnerships, and I recently was curatorial lead on an audio resource exploring the history of domestic life. I have project-managed several oral history fieldwork projects gathering long life story interviews – including on the UK Water Industry and Baring Bank. I am currently researching how oral history and family history intersect, which builds upon my studies of my own family history, and I have been delighted to collaborate with fellow OHS Trustees on advice for family historians using oral history. As a member of the #HistoriansCollaborate Network, we are bringing together academic, community and family historians, with archive and museum professionals to interrogate how we research the past in order to foster better collaboration.
