Virtual
archive connects students to history
By Yoshinori Okada
On-line Forty-Niner
Cal
State Long Beach has recently begun to offer
the Virtual Oral/Aural History Archive to
students, faculty and scholars through the
Internet, allowing them to learn about history
by hearing the actual voices of people talking
about their experiences.
The archive, a collaborative project of
Academic Computing Services, the College
of Liberal Arts and the University Library
at CSULB, presently has made available more
than 300 hours of oral interviews, according
to the Web site.
The interviews were conducted mainly by
project directors Sherna Berger Gluck and
Kaye Briegel, both history professors, their
colleagues and students in the Oral History
and Women’s Studies programs.
Gluck, whose work dates back to 1972 in
the Feminist History Research Project, an
independent, community-based group, deposited
all of her interviews in the Library’s Special
Collections and Archive. She initiated a
pilot program in 1999 to place the interviews
that are housed in the Library onto the
World Wide Web. In August, the first 300
hours were launched on the Web, enabling
easy access for everyone to the archive.
“Everybody, K-12 students can use it for
their class projects, as well as college
students and established scholars,” Gluck
said. “There are many scholars who have
used our materials, but they had to come
to Long Beach. This way any of them, anywhere
in the country, or the world, can use the
material. It’s a very important primary
source for people to use.”
The most significant thing about the archive,
Gluck said, is that it captures the aurality
of an oral history interview: the spoken
word.
“I wanted people to hear how people spoke,”
she said. “And as soon as you transcribe,
it makes a difference. Their expression,
if they hesitate, or if they emphasize words,
the performance, all that is lost in a written
transcript.”
Most interviews in the archive feature people
who are not famous, providing a different
view of history; she added. This view is
what Gluck calls the history of the historically
voiceless.
“That’s what makes the Virtual Oral History
Archive so important,” she said. “It’s coming
up with a different version of history.”
The archive could be used in history, linguistics,
literature and gerontology classes, Gluck
said.
History professor Dennis Kortheuer said
that the presentation of the virtual archive
was well received by the students in his
history methodology class. Several students
are planning to use oral history interviews
and access the archives available for their
class projects.
As of Oct. 11, the three main collections
consist of women’s history, labor history
and Long Beach area history. Many of the
interviews are accompanied by photographs
of people speaking, while some interviews
include slide shows.
This project was made possible by an initial
grant from CSULB and
contributions from private organizations
such as the Haynes Foundation and the Long
Beach Navy Memorial Heritage Association.
Gluck said she has a large grant application
to the National Endowment for the Humanities
pending for the purpose of adding another
600 hours of interviews on the Web.
While Gluck said no major problems have
been observed since the current site was
launched, she pointed out that for some
of the features, like the slide shows, a
fast connection works best.
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