Interviewing in Community Oral History

The interview is the anchor of an oral history project. The fourth book in the five-volume Community Oral History Toolkit guides the interviewer through all the steps from interview preparation through follow-up. It includes guidance on selecting interviewees, training interviewers, using recording equipment, and ethical issues concerning the interviewer-interviewee relationship. Packed with instructive case studies, Volume 4 offers concrete practical examples and advice for issues such as pre-interview research, developing interview questions and points for guiding discussion, ideal interview settings and conditions, strategies for stimulating interviewees’ memories, acceptable communication techniques and behavior throughout the interview process, and rounding out interview documentation with supplementary materials and contextual information.

Mary Kay Quinlan, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the College of Journalism and Mass Communication. She has held positions as Baltimore Sun Distinguished Lecturer and William Randolph Hearst Visiting Professional at the University of Maryland, and has served as president of the National Press Club. She is editor of the Oral History Association Newsletter and co-author with Barbara Sommer of The Oral History Manual (AltaMira Press, 2002, 2009), Native American Veterans Oral History Manual (Nebraska Foundation for the Preservation of Oral History, 2005), and Discovering Your Connections to History (AASLH, 2000). She is also a co-author with Sommer and Charles E. Trimble of The American Indian Oral History Manual: Making Many Voices Heard (Left Coast Press, Inc., 2008).

Nancy MacKay, MLIS, has been straddling the line between libraries and oral history for more than twenty years. As a librarian she has worked with special collections, cataloging, and music in various academic settings. As an oral historian she teaches, consults, advises, and writes about oral history, especially oral history and archives. She directed the oral history program at Mills College, from 2001-2011, and currently teaches library science and oral history at San Jose State University. Current research interests include the condition of oral histories in repositories and a model for a metadata scheme for oral histories. Nancy is the author of Curating Oral Histories (Left Coast Press, Inc., 2007) and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of California, Berkeley.

Barbara W. Sommer, M.A., has over twenty-five years of experience in the oral history field. She has been principal investigator and director of more than twenty major oral history projects and has taught at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nebraska Wesleyan University, and Vermilion Community College. She is a long-time member of the Oral History Association and is author of many key publications in the field, including, with Mary Kay Quinlan, The Oral History Manual, 2nd ed. (AltaMira Press, 2009) and with Charles E. Trimble and Mary Kay Quinlan, The American Indian Oral History Manual: Making Many Voices Heard (Left Coast Press, Inc., 2008). Her award-winning book Hard Work and a Good Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2008) draws on oral history interviews about the Civilian Conservation Corps, as does her essay, “’We Had This Opportunity:’ African Americans and the Civilian Conservation Corps in Minnesota,” in The State We’re In: Reflections on Minnesota History, Annette Atkins and Deborah L. Miller, eds, (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010). She also is the author of a history of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln based on oral history (University of Nebraska Press, 2012). She holds a bachelor’s degree from Carleton College and a master’s degree in history from the University of Minnesota.