Oral History and Sound Collections

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Edited by Paula Hamilton and Joy Damousi. Historians in many fields have begun to listen to the past, developing new arguments about the history and the memory of sensory experience. This volume builds on scholarship produced over the last twenty years, drawing out connections between sound, memory and the senses.

Edited by Douglas A. Boyd and Mary A. Larson, who look at the developments that have occurred in the practice of oral history since digital audio and video became viable. Various groundbreaking projects in digital oral history are explored.

Edited by Alexander Freund and Alistair Thomson.
This book collects original research essays to explore the diverse uses of photographs and photography in oral history, from the use of photos as memory triggers to their deployment in the telling of life stories. The book's contributors include both oral historians and photography scholars and critics.
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Edited by Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes. Oral history and public memories is the first book to explore the relationship between the practice of oral history and the field of memory studies.

by Michael Frisch. First published in 1990 and considered a ground breaking work in the field of oral history, Michael Fritsch in a series of essays and reviews considered the possibilities for a “shared authority” between historian and narrator in oral history work.
Held in offsite storage. Request through the catalogue or call (02) 9273 1414 to request in advance. Book will be available after 4pm the next weekday.

by Paul Thompson. A classic text in the study of oral history. Thompson argues that oral history can help to create a truer picture of the past, documenting the lives and feeling of all kinds of people, and that its value has been neglected by conventional historians. The effect of collecting oral evidence, he claims, can be to bind together communities and promote contact between generations.

Edited by Sherna Berger Gluck and Daphne Patai. Thirteen essays written by authors from a number of different disciplines. Women’s Words was one of the first works that explored feminist perspectives in oral history.