The Evolution of Best Practice at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Oral History Program

ABSTRACT

Using experienced-based examples from the Oral History Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, this article is intended to be of practical use for oral historians, archivists, and community organizers. It follows how the Oral History Program has implemented changes to traditional methods but continues to ethically care for their collection while maintaining long-term relationships with donors. The article calls upon users and practitioners to review the best practices in their archives, to listen to colleagues, to follow current literature, but also to be responsive to their patrons’ wishes, honor relationships with donors, find innovative approaches to making collections accessible, and create new best practices while respecting culturally sensitive materials.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural significance
• indigenous culture
• release agreements

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Mary Larson, David Olson, Robyn Russell, and Kimberly Springer for providing background information and literature for this article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹. Kimberly Springer, “Do the Dead Care About Releases? Death, Hagiography and Access in Columbia’s Oral History Archive,” workshop presented at Columbia Oral History Master of Arts, Columbia University, February 10, 2022, http://oralhistory.columbia.edu/calendar/do-the-dead-care-about-releases-access-in-columbias-oral-history-archive.

² Based on a Release Agreement for UAF Oral History Program, call number Oral History 83-02.

³ Based on a Release Agreement for UAF Oral History Program, call number Oral History 91-12-295/300.

⁴ Based on a Release Agreement for UAF Oral History Program, call number Oral History 2000-07-08 Pts. 1-2.

⁵ Based on a Release Agreement for UAF Oral History Program, call number Oral History 2013-20.

⁶ Based on UAF Blanket Release, January 1, 1940-December 31, 1999.

⁷ To see an example of this, go to the UAF Rasmuson and Mather Libraries, Library Catalog, https://jlc-web.uaa.alaska.edu/client/en_US/uaf. Under the drop-down menu for Collections, select UAF Oral History Collection. In the search bar, search for Sheldon, Bobby 1964; six results should come up. Select “Bobby Sheldon speaks at a Tanana Yukon Historical Society meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska on July 23, 1964”; the accession number of this recording is Oral History 97-66-10. Go to the bottom of the catalog record to Online Access, where you can click to listen to the audio or click to read a summary of the recording.

⁸ Project Jukebox, originally developed using Hypercard in 1988, was the first digital access point to oral histories in the Oral History Program’s collection at UAF. Over the years, the delivery systems have changed, but it was, and continues to be, a way to integrate oral history recordings with other associated archival materials such as photographs, maps, and text. Currently there are over fifty projects from throughout Alaska, each specific to a topic or an area (https://jukebox.uaf.edu/).

⁹ Mary Larson, “Steering Clear of the Rocks: A Look at the Current State of Oral History Ethics in the Digital Age,” Oral History Review 40 no. 1 (March 2013): 36-39.

¹⁰ We now had the ability to insert an MP3 and/or transcript directly into the UAF Rasmuson and Mather Libraries’ library catalog by attaching files into the 856 data field of the library catalog record for a specific recording/item (https://library.uaf.edu/home).

¹¹ John A. Neuenschwander, A Guide to Oral History and the Law (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), 2009.

¹² See, for example, the catalog entry for Bobby Sheldon referenced in note 7.

¹³ “OCLC is a global library organization that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large”; see https://www.oclc.org/en/about.html. WorldCat is “a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions, in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative”; see https://www.worldcat.org/.

¹⁴ This is not the real name of the collection; “Spring Dance” is a pseudonym. While the parties involved are happy for me to speak about this collection, they have requested that I not publish the actual name of the collection, the people, or the communities involved. Thus, all names used in this section of this paper are pseudonyms, and identifiable details of the Spring Dance have been withheld.

¹⁵ Nathan is a pseudonym.

¹⁶ David Olson, “Forms, Formations, and Reforms: Seven Decades of Oral History Rights and Access Documentation,” 2022; article under consideration for publication in American Archivist.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leslie McCartney

Leslie McCartney is a cultural anthropologist specializing in oral history. She is the Curator of the Oral History Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She also works with Indigenous communities in the Canadian subarctic and Alaska and has worked on oral history projects in Europe. Along with coauthor Gwich’in Tribal Council, their book, Our Whole Gwich’in Way of Life Has Changed/Gwich’in K’yuu Gwiidandài’ Tthak Ejuk Gòonlih Stories from the People of the Land, was the 2021 winner of the Oral History Association’s Book Award for outstanding use of oral history. The book also won Honourable Mention in the Labrecque-Lee Book Prize from the Canadian Anthropology Society/ La Société Canadienne d’Anthropologie. Email: [email protected].