“The relationship between history and the community should not be in either direction: but rather a series of exchanges, a dialectic, between information and interpretation, between educationists and their localities, between classes and generations. There will be room for many kinds of oral history and it will have many different social consequences. But at bottom they are all related.”
Paul Thompson, ‘The Voice of the Past’ (1988)
The Oral History Noticeboard:
This independent blog is a ‘noticeboard’ for people involved or with an interest in oral history in the UK and beyond. It is a place to publicise your news, project or event, read “OH” news. It is also an open space for discussion and sharing experience.
Who it’s for:
The noticeboard for anyone working with, or with an interest in, oral history in the UK. It aims to cover items and issues in oral history in all of its settings, including personal oral histories, community-based oral history and in research and higher education.
The blog is not funded by or affiliated with any institution or organisation, and it is open to all oral history-related news.
The benefit of the blog-approach is that notices (and comments) can be posted almost immediately, and thanks to social media, links can be circulated quickly and easily to those interested in OH news and developments (the Oral History Society often tweet our links). The blog shows up in Google searches too, so hopefully people will also stumble across us if they’re searching for oral history information.
So if you’re working on a project, want to volunteer for a project, find interviewees, want share a particular experience, advertise a job or event etc, do share!
How it works:
The idea of this blog is that it is open to everyone to post their OH stuff, like a noticeboard. If you have something to post and share, we can post on your behalf (see Submit Your News & Views). If you’re likely to post stuff regularly, you can be added as an author.
Feedback, comments and info relating to a post should be shared using the comments facility. And those here just to read are also more than welcome!
You can keep up-t0-date with news from the site by subscribing by email or RSS feeds.
Bloggers:
- Fiona Cosson: I set up The Oral History Noticeboard blog in April 2011, and I still write the vast majority of the posts. I’m a social and oral historian, and I’ve worked on a number of community oral history projects in the past. I’m currently a Research Associate for the Manchester Centre for Regional History at Manchester Metropolitan University. Twitter: @FionaCosson , Email: f.cosson [at] mmu.ac.uk
- Anne Gulland is the publicity officer for the Oral History Society. In her day job she’s a freelance journalist, writing mainly about health, but she has an interest in oral history after completing a masters in life history research at Sussex University. Twitter: @annegulland
