Oral History and the Public: Creating Podcasts with Open Source Software and Social Media

• In Event: OHA Poster Session and Project Bazaar

Abstract

The Albert Gore Research Center at Middle Tennessee State University preserves several different collections of oral histories and interviews from veterans, Middle Tennesseans, notable university figures, and many others. This poster will demonstrate how we have made our collections accessible online and will provide information for other institutions and organizations working with limited funds and resources to do the same.

Most audio and video files from our oral history collections are available on our website via the finding aids and transcripts. Starting in 2015, we have taken a step further by creating podcasts from our oral history collections and making them available through social media.

We are using open source software called Audacity to create podcasts giving students an opportunity to learn from oral history and acquire new skills. First, they listen to the oral history recording and read the transcript. Next, they write and record their own brief narration summary of the story. Lastly, they edit the oral history recording and combine it with their narration to make the podcast. The podcast is then uploaded to SoundCloud and the link is shared on Twitter, WordPress, and Facebook.

We would like to showcase our oral history podcast series Veterans Voices: Stories of Service with this poster. In partnership with the Library of Congress, our veterans oral history collection consists of interviews that focus on United States military conflicts documenting the views of participants as well as those of the general public. Several students have created podcasts with this collection and we want to include excerpts from the oral histories, podcasts, and images of the veterans on our poster.

Author

• Julie Anne Maresco, Middle Tennessee State University, Albert Gore Research Center