Projects

Oral History Project

Introduction
At the Annual Congress in Hanoi 2004, the General Assembly approved a proposal for FIAF to initiate an Oral History Project, to record both its own history, and the related histories of its member archives. Because FIAF was founded by European and American archives, it is inevitable that the longest connections should be with archives in those regions. All the founder members are now dead, but still alive are people who worked with them or had some other connection with them These second generation people are themselves no longer young and it is essential to record their memories before the possibility of direct contact with those early years disappears entirely.

Because of this, if there were need to prioritise resources, first claim would have to be given to European and North American archives. However, given the relatively small costs of the practical side of this project, members from other regions should not have to wait until the work of these pioneers has been recorded. There is absolutely nothing to prevent interested archives from any region from arranging for interviews of people in their own countries, provided the same standards are maintained across the board.

Structure
The Project requires a small steering committee and a co-ordinator. So far, Mike Pogorzelski, and Robert Daudelin have both expressed interest in being connected with the Project, and, for historical reasons, it would be essential for the Committee to include someone from France and someone from Germany.

Membership of the Steering Committee would be voluntary, but members should feel free to co-opt (for a longer or shorter time) anyone they felt could be of particular help in a particular country or region. The Committee could meet at Annual Congress, opportunistically at festivals around the world, and/or communicate without actually meeting via e-mail, telephone etc. Some thought would need to be given to payment of members’ expenses if, for example, they were not employed by a member Archive.

The Steering Committee would be responsible for, e.g.,

• Identifying potential interviewees
  
• Identifying archives and/or individuals to participate
  
• Asking archives to identify member of staff (or other people) to participate as interviewers, as transcribers, as translators, etc.
  
• Producing a list of basic questions for interviews
  

In addition, Steering Committee members might themselves wish to be involved in recording interviews from time to time, for example, with archivists they know well, or where they have strong relationships with a particular archive. The EC might also delegate to the Steering Committee responsibility for authorising access to particular interviews and transcripts.

The Co-ordinator would require payment for a fixed number of days work per annum, together with any major out-of-pocket expenses. Primary functions of the Co-ordinator would be: to convene meetings of the Committee; to maintain contact on behalf of the Committee with appropriate archives; to co-ordinate the making of transcriptions and translations of interviews; to ensure that standard practices were used by all participating archives; to ensure that the interviews, the transcriptions and the translations were properly archived and accessible; to help ensure the highest quality of transcription and translation; to administer the Project budget (if such exists); and, from time to time, to be involved in recording interviews. The Co-ordinator should also look at the resources required to ensure the Project’s continuity.