The Oral History Project Plan

Plan a family or community oral history as a whole project: sittings sized to each narrator, every recording inside a two-hour visit, a question list at your own measured pace, consent and the release as two papers, two copies of every file, an index before any transcript, and a narrator who reads it first

TaleKeeper's Oral-History Interview Planner splits one sitting's recorded minutes across five sections and suggests a question count. A real oral history is more than one sitting: several sittings for several people, each inside a visit that runs longer than the recording, and every recorded hour still needing files, copies, an index or a transcript, and a reader after the recorder stops. This plan carries the planner through the whole project. In its worked example, three narrators and 330 recorded minutes become 6 sittings and 12 hours in the room; a 75-minute sitting gets 15 questions at the planner's default pace but 9 at the 6.5 minutes a timed practice interview actually ran; and indexing every hour first, then transcribing one narrator in full, takes 31 hours of work instead of 44. Sources are quoted where they are used: the Oral History Association's best practices, the UCSC Regional History Project's two-hour visit, and Oregon State University Libraries' eight-hours-per-hour rule of thumb. Every figure is computed by the site's own code, and the worked numbers are examples to replace with yours. It is not legal advice: consent and the release are separate papers, and you use your repository's own forms. Included: seven steps, four printable working pages (project sheet, sitting plan, consent and release log, time-tag index sheet), reference tables, a quickstart, and a personalised sheet worked from the numbers you enter in the planner.

Look inside

Two full pages from the plan, exactly as printed. Click either to read it at full size before you decide.

What is in it

• The Sitting Rule: sittings sized to what each narrator can give, never over ninety recorded minutes
• The Two-Hour Visit Rule: the recording placed inside its visit, with the spoken lead-in written out
• The Measured Pace Rule: one timed practice interview, and the question list written at that pace
• The Two Papers Rule: informed consent and the release kept apart, restrictions and pseudonyms logged
• The Two Copies Rule: file sizes by format, and two checked copies before the card is reused
• The Index First Rule: five-minute time tags for every hour, full transcripts only where they earn it
• The First Reader Rule: the narrator reads the index or transcript first, then deposit with its paper
• Four printable working pages: project sheet, sitting plan, consent and release log, time-tag index sheet
• Reference tables: the planner by recorded length and pace, file sizes per recorded hour, and the work one hour carries
• A quickstart checklist and a personalised sheet worked from your own planner inputs

The plan picks up where the free Oral-History Interview Plannerleaves off. That planner splits one sitting's recorded minutes across five sections and suggests a question count; the Reading-Time Estimatorgives the speaking and reading paces. The plan carries them through a whole project: sittings sized to each narrator, the visit around each recording, a question list at your own measured pace, consent and the release kept as two papers, two copies of every file, an index before any transcript, and a narrator who reads it first. Every figure in it is an example for you to replace. It is not legal advice: use your repository's own forms.