The Oral History Review

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A few of Troy’s favorite things

Now that Caitlin and Andrew have had their fun, Troy Reeves gets a turn to highlight some of his favorite posts from the OHR blog and make us feel nostalgic for all the time we’ve spent in our little corner of the internet.

As I’m neck deep in the Holidays and my final weeks as OHR’s managing editor, I’m coming back to the pop culture of my youth(-ish) and the DJ in my head is playing “It’s so Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” while I look over what we’ve published.

First, (and my DJ has moved to Joe Cocker here) I leaned on my friends (and colleagues) to help us keeping the blog fires warm. Now that we’ve got our playlist set up for a trip down memory lane, I have to stop by our interview with audio transcriptionist Teresa Bergen. We still think all of our transcripting friends are beautiful.

The blog also gave us a chance to hear from #OralHistory colleagues from all over, including Sarah Milligan, Doug Boyd, and Stephen Sloan (to name just a few).

My Madison peeps also helped us get by (not high … hugs not drugs people) on several occasions. Sam Snyder’s review of voice recognition software was both fun and informative. And the interview we did with Scott Seyforth & Nichole Barnes about their piece in the #OHR helped to highlight the role Madison played in a story that often focuses only on coastal cities.

Dana Gerber contributed twice to the blog, and her love of podcasts and her interest in trying to actually preserve them for future generations comes through so clearly in her first post. On top of that, she has become a great friend.

Finally, I cannot sing Andrew Shaffer’s praises enough, and while not a Madisonian anymore – he went to San Francisco, perhaps with a flower in his hair?— since taking over the blog from Caitlin Tyler-Richards, he has excelled at keeping the posts on-time, tight and timely. While nearly impossible to choose from all the posts he wrote or co-authored, his November 2015 post, “Getting to the core of Story Corps, and other audio puns,” stands as my favorite. It shows off his writing skill, as well as his sense of humor.  

I’m stopping now both because of space and because I have hit my pop culture reference quota. One last, short but sweet comment: I loved working with Andrew and Caitlin. You can find them online at @aw_shaffer and @ctredits.

A few of Andrew’s favorite things

With our time on the Editorial Team quickly winding down, we’re taking turns sharing some of our favorite moments from the last three years at the #OHR. Below Andrew Shaffer, our Social Media manager, shares some of his fondest memories.

The first blog post I worked on was a podcast with the always brilliant Amy Starecheski. I still remember how nervous I was to write it up and hit submit, as evidenced by the title, which I just lifted from Amy’s article. #SoOriginal. https://blog.oup.com/2014/10/power-oral-history-making-practice

I was a little more confident by the time I interviewed Linda Shopes about her #OHR article, but still worried that I was asking all the wrong questions. I still come back to her blog post frequently, as I reflect on the “urge to collect.” 

My interview with Jennifer Helgren about the role nostalgia plays in #OralHistory produced one of my favorite phrases: “oral history as a history of the present,” another one I come back to regularly. 

The most fun I ever had in an interview (and my only time on the podcast!) came when I got to talk to Elspeth Brown about the LGBTQ History Digital Collaboratory. I won’t admit how many times I re-recorded the intro before I was ok with the sound of my own voice 😬. 

In addition to the podcast, I’m proud of the efforts we made to highlight LGBTQ Oral History on the blog, including a short list of some projects documenting queer lives across the U.S. 

By partnering with others, we got even more great content, like a sneak peak at some amazing content that the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program recorded at the Equality March 2017. 

During the #OHMATakeover of 2016, the students and staff of the Oral History MA program at the Columbia Center for Oral History Research took control of the blog and published some really fantastic content. My personal favorite was Audrey Augenbraum’s piece on the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project

I ❤️ their work and had mentioned them on a previous post, along with mapping projects from Youth Radio and the Fiji Time film. Apparently, Maps + #OralHistory = my idea of a good time.

And last, but certainly not least, I still get chills reading our two-part conversation between Henry Greenspan and @timcole_bristol.
Part 1: https://blog.oup.com/2016/01/hank-greenspan-tim-cole-part-1/
Part 2: https://blog.oup.com/2016/02/hank-greenspan-time-cole-part-2/

I am eternally grateful to Troy Reeves for taking a chance on me after I showed up hours late to my first interview, to Kathy Nasstrom for constant encouragement, to Caitlin Tyler-Richards for teaching me how to twitter, and to all the people I’ve been lucky enough to meet in this gig.

oral history so long farewell

A few of Caitlin’s favorite things

Before we sign off for the last time, the outgoing #OHR staff want to toot our own horns one last time. Below Caitlin Tyler-Richards, our first Social Media whiz, relives some of her favorites from her time at the journal.

Obviously, I have to include my first piece for the OHR blog. While I am still proud to have published something on such a public platform, and still believe in the power of #publichistory projects…wow, it has not aged well. https://blog.oup.com/2012/11/how-to-survive-election-season-oral-history-style.

This interview with Jennifer Abraham Cramer, director of Louisiana State University’s T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, remains one of my favorite pieces. Definitely worth a re-read in the wake of the 2017 summer apocalypse. https://blog.oup.com/2012/12/oral-history-in-disaster-zones.

In December 2013 I interviewed Claire Payton about conducting #OralHistory in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake & the Haiti Memory Project (www.HaitiMemoryProject.org) https://blog.oup.com/2013/12/haiti-earthquake-oral-history-spirituality-vodou.

Claire Payton recently returned to Haiti for a DLOC digitization workshop geared towards Haitian librarians and archivists http://claireantonepayton.com/2017/11/12/digitization-workshop-in-port-au-prince-for-eap-grant/.

And last but not least, this post comes the closest to capturing the OHR office’s kind irreverence, and will always hold a special place in my heart. https://blog.oup.com/2014/09/caitlin-tyler-richards-oral-history-review.

You can follow Caitlin on Twitter at @ctredits.

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