Services & Resources

CCOHR Services

The Columbia Center for Oral History Research (CCOHR) provides a range of education and research services. Email us to learn more about the services we offer.

• Workshops and Short Courses
  Staff are occasionally available to conduct workshops for organizations seeking to initiate projects, train interviewers, or develop procedures. During the Fall Semester, CCOHR and INCITE offers a short course in oral history open to the public through the Mellon fellows program. In January each year we offer various oral history training and also have a full range of public programming throughout the year. Subscribe to our mail-list for full details.

• Seminars & Education
  CCOHR gives an advanced graduate seminar in oral history method and theory through the Oral History Master of Arts program (OHMA). The Director of CCOHR, Mary Marshall Clark at ccohr@columbia.edu should be contacted about how to register for this seminar or other OHMA courses.

• Community Outreach
  CCOHR works with local historical agencies, museums, community groups and schools on various projects. Such work includes but is not limited to training, workshops, grant assistance, funding information, and general support.

• Partnerships
  CCOHR works in partnership with universities, community groups, and non-governmental organizations to promote innovative oral history projects and programs. Those seeking to undertake such projects should contact Mary Marshall Clark at ccohr@columbia.edu.

CCOHR Resources

CCOHR has great resources to help you learn about oral history, and design and construct your project. We can put you in touch with others in your city or community who made be doing similar work.  We can also share the Telling Lives curriculum guide we developed for middle school students, upon request.

Research Guides

CCOHR has produced a pair of guides to help researchers, activists and educators conduct oral histories. These reports are:

• Oral History Transcription Style Guide (2022)

• Telling Lives Curriculum Guide

• Oral History Philosophy, Procedures, and Evaluation

• Documenting and Interpreting Conflict Through Oral History

• IRB Review of Oral History Projects (Authored by CCOHR in 2007)

YouTube and iTunes U Resources

CCOH has videos about oral history theory and practice on YouTube. And be sure to check out our audio segments on iTunes U, which includes clips from selected interviews, as well as instructional audio about oral history.

Oral History Bibliography

Download our  comprehensive list of articles and books of and about oral history here.

CCOHR's Procedures for Audio and Video Interviews

Oral historians may be interested to learn about our procedures for conducting oral history projects, whether on audio or video. These procedures cover everything from deciding on the use of interviews, to conducting the interviews, to having interviewees review the transcript, and dealing with any relevant legal issues. Download descriptions of our procedures for audio and video interviews.

Other Resources

Below are links to the websites of selected organizations in oral history.

• The Oral History Association seeks to bring together all persons interested in oral history as a way of collecting and interpreting human memories to foster knowledge and human dignity. The informative website has information on best practices, a wiki about the field, and more.

• The International Oral History Association is the professional association for oral historians worldwide, and its website contains useful information on organizations around the globe, and many other resources.

• The Baylor Institute for Oral History has an excellent online workshop series about how to design and carry out oral history projects.

• The Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling at the Montreal Life Centre makes innovative use of oral history both online, as well as in various art forms.

• The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky has some helpful instructional videos about choosing digital recording equipment for your oral history projects, as well as information on its impressive collections.

• The Regional Oral History Office at the University of California at Berkeley has outstanding collections on the history and culture of California and the United States.

• The Southern Oral History Program is part of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hilll. It has a superior collection of interviews on the American South, many of which are available online in audio and text formats, and excellentresources for conducting your own interviews.