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Evolve or Die: Strategies to Survive and Thrive in the Face of Budget Shortages and Tech Limitations

Thu, October 9, 8:30 to 10:00am, Madison Concourse Hotel, Floor: 2, Conference II

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

Funding shortages and diminishing resources are increasingly common challenges faced by many oral history programs. In this context, how do we fund the collection of oral histories, continue to generate (costly) item-level descriptions, and make interviews available and discoverable to the public? Furthermore, how do under-funded programs adapt to technological advances and increasing demands to create and maintain online and digital resources while upholding best practices? This roundtable examines adaptation strategies that include extensive outreach collaborations, creative fundraising, changes in collection and processing priorities and workflow, and restructuring of personnel to create in-house web development staff.

In 2010, LSU’s Williams Center for Oral History faced an adapt-or-die situation: the state cut funding, giving the twenty year-old program thirty days’ notice to determine a way to stay open and operational. By 2014, the Center survived to tell the tale and is now a relatively thriving program. Over a period of three years, the Center’s director and LSU Libraries administration maximized strengths, eliminated inefficiencies, and implemented immediate and gradual changes that saved the program and strengthened its position for future growth.

In this roundtable session, project leaders will offer brief remarks on different aspects of the Center’s adaptation strategies to provoke panel and audience discussion. Center staff will demystify technology rumors and biases often inherent in the bureaucracy of academic institutions and provide example applications for in-house web design and programming. Staff will also discuss the efficient and cost-effective transition from verbatim transcription to thorough indexing in the creation of item-level description finding aids. Center partners from Louisiana Sea Grant and LSU AgCenter, respectively, will discuss benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary institutional collaborations and touch on how their projects use oral histories to examine links between scientific, environmental, and cultural changes.

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