Calling all Victorian oral history collection holders – the Identifying Precarious Victorian Oral History Collections Project wants to hear from you!
Do you hold an oral history collection in Victoria? Are you confident that your collection will be safe in 10, 20 or even 50 years? If not, the Identifying Precarious Victorian Oral History Collections Project wants to hear from you!
This project asks any person, group or organisation who currently possesses a precarious oral history collection in Victoria to complete an online form to tell them about the collection. Your collection doesn’t need to be publicly accessible, or available for use, and you don’t have to share your collection with the project organisers to participate – simply tell them about it!
Many public libraries across Victoria hold rich oral history collections, and we encourage library staff to tell us about any precarious collections via our online form.
While collection holders may be taking a range of measures to keep their collections safe, they may still be precarious. Many collections held outside of major state and nationally funded cultural institutions are at risk of not surviving into the future because they don’t have the resources needed for ongoing digital preservation and long-term management of interview access conditions.
Visit www.precariousoralhistories.com to fill in the form. Submissions are open until 31 August 2025.
The project aims to capture vital information about as many precarious oral history collections in Victoria as possible. The project team will compile and release a list that features the information they learn via a public online database, and produce a project report, at the project’s conclusion.
Project findings will:
- Provide a one-off snapshot of the state of precarious Victorian oral history collections
- Increase the visibility of the existence of these precarious collections
- Become a foundational resource for any future work advocating for support, preservation and use of precarious Victorian oral history collections.
The Identifying Precarious Victorian Oral History Collections Project is a project led by oral historians at the Australian National University (ANU) team of the Language Data Commons of Australia (funded by the Australian Research Data Commons). The project team is working closely with the National Library of Australia, the State Library of Victoria, Oral History Australia, Oral History Victoria and community organisations.
For further information:
- Visit the project website
- View the Project Flyer
- Access the online form
Contact the project staff:
- Dr Anisa Puri, Project Lead, Research Project Manager (LDaCA, ANU). Email: [email protected] or phone: 02 6125 8369
- Jen Rose, Research Officer (LDaCA, ANU). Email: [email protected], phone or text: 0413 734 039.
Help us spread the word: We would love your help spreading the word about the project. The project flyer is available for download here. Jen Rose can also share our full promotions kit with anyone who wishes to share the details with their networks or contacts.
[Posted on behalf of the Identifying Precarious Victorian Oral History Collections Project]