The National Oral History Association of New Zealand (NOHANZ) invites abstract submissions for its biennial conference, to be held at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, on November 28-29 this year. The conference theme is "Te Waha Kairongorongo e": The Voice in Time and Space. It focuses on the sweet sound of the voice, the singers of tales (te waha kairongorongo), storytellers, and the resonance of the voice through time and space. Abstracts need to be submitted by Friday June 29 - more information and application details here.
Australia Day accolade
Congratulations to Kevin Bradley, currently the National Library's Acting Assistant Director General; Collection Management, who received a medal for public service in the recent Australia Day Honours list. The award recognised his work in oral history and digital preservation - read the citation below:
For outstanding public service through the digital preservation of audio visual heritage material. Mr Bradley has been the driving force in the development of innovative approaches to preserving, and providing Australians with access to, the National Library of Australia's significant collection of unique oral history and folklore recordings.
He has developed a fifteen-year plan to digitally preserve the National Library's audio collection, recognising that the imminent obsolescence of play back equipment risked the future loss of unique heritage. No other cultural institution is as far advanced in digital preservation of its audio collections, and the National Library's outcomes have been achieved entirely within existing resources. He is a world expert in the preservation and digitisation of audio visual archival heritage material and was President and Executive member of the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) and UNESCO's Memory of the World Subcommittee on Technology and Information for All Programme Technical Committee. As Vice-Chair of the IASA Technical Committee, and with their input and support, Mr Bradley edited and wrote much of the content of the 'Guidelines for the production and preservation of digital audio objects' which has become an international standard.
Exciting new resource from the State Library of NSW
State Library of NSW recently launched an online guide to its Oral History and Sound collections.
Having actively collected oral history and sound since the 1980s, its collection of oral histories, radio interviews, talks, podcasts and recordings of performances and seminars is the largest in NSW and one of the largest in Australia.
The guide explains how to find, then access, the Library's collection, including:
Amplify – The Library’s growing collection of online interviews offering access alongside computer-generated transcripts.
Catalogue search - 12,000 hours of analogue and reel to reel taped interviews and sound artefacts, recently digitised to enhance online access in the future.
Collection Highlights – which offers a snapshot of significant parts of the oral history and sound collections such as Industry and Working Life, Art and Artists, Local History, Indigenous Australians, Migration, Gay and Lesbian Life and Sydney Harbour.
It also includes listings of other State Library and online resources useful to people studying or interested in oral history theory and practice, promotes a sample of worksin the Library’s collection that are the end products of oral history work and has links to over 50 online oral history related websites in Australia and internationally. The guide is to be welcomed as it raises the profile of State Library of NSW's oral history collections considerably.
New OHA Journal now available
The 2017 Oral History Australia Journal draws much of its content from papers given at the very successful OHA conference held in Sydney in September 2017. This is the first edition of the journal to be available online only. If you're a member of an affiliated Oral History Australia association you can access the latest edition at the OHA website, using the log-in details that have been emailed to you.