Saturday 16 August 2025

10 am – 4 pm

Online via Zoom

Trainer: Al Thomson

In this audio-visual digital age, it’s easy to forget that oral historians often use interviews in written formats. This interactive online workshop will focus on approaches and issues in creating text-based outputs from oral history interviews, using examples from Al’s oral history publications and from participants’ own work.

First, we’ll discuss the range of ways in which oral history interviews are used in text-based outputs: in books, journal articles, websites, exhibitions and other media. We will note how new technologies are enabling new types of production that combine text and audio (and audio-visuals), and the opportunities and challenges posed by 21st-century innovations.

Second, we’ll explore issues and approaches in creating verbatim and ‘poetic’ transcripts, we’ll review some basic guidelines and some useful software, and we’ll workshop one example for participant transcription and discussion.

Third, we’ll focus on approaches and issues in editing transcripts for publication, we’ll discuss editorial aims, processes and decisions, and we’ll workshop an example.

Fourth, we’ll consider different approaches to using oral history interviews in writing and explore ethical, aesthetic and interpretative issues in writing with oral history.

By the end of the day you will have enhanced your understanding and skills in writing with oral history.

Facilitator

Alistair Thomson has been teaching oral history in both community and academic settings since 1985, and in 2018 won the Australian University Award for Teaching Excellence in Humanities and Social Sciences. Al has worked as an oral historian at Sussex University and Monash University and has served as President of the International Oral History Association and of Oral History Australia.

Al’s oral history books, often collaborative productions, include: Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend (1994), Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants (2005), Moving Stories: an intimate history of four women across two countries (2011), Oral History and Photography (2011), The Oral History Reader (1998, 2006 and 2016), Australian Lives: An Intimate History (2017) and Fathering: An Australian History (2025). He is currently co-editing The Bloomsbury Oral History Handbook (2026), which includes Al’s chapter ‘Writing oral history’. Find out more at https://althomsonoralhistory.com.au/

BOOK HERE!

The 23rd International Oral History Association (IOHA) Conference is scheduled for Kraków, Poland from 16-19 September 2025.

The theme of the conference is Re-Thinking Oral History.

Biennial conferences of the International Oral History Association (IOHA) allow for reviewing the global conditions and problems of oral history, regardless of the actual conference theme. This time, however, the organizers of the 23^rd IOHA Conference call on oral historians worldwide to consciously rethink the idea and practice of their discipline.

Oral history today faces both old and new challenges with long-lasting and unpredictable consequences: the crisis of liberal democracy, growing tensions in international politics, climate change with its devastating outcomes on human life, increasing inequalities, wars, and mass migrations. All of the foregoing not only affect the conditions in which oral history is made, but also compels us to rethink its very aim. For Central and Eastern Europe, the full-scale Russian aggression in Ukraine beginning in February 2022 and its consequences are an especially painful reminder of that. Though oral history was, and still is a part of history, it has always been conscious of the responsibility (oral) history has for the current society. Aware of that mission, we encourage the global oral history community to return to the core questions of our practice: what kind of histories should we tell and pass on to the current and future generation

Find out more about the conference at: https://ioha2025.conference.pl/.

See the Call for Papers – https://ioha2025.conference.pl/en/call-for-papers. The deadline for proposal submissions was 31 August 2024.

The annual meeting of the Oral History Association will be held from 15-18 October 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.

The year 2025 marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed. For this year’s Annual Meeting, the Oral History Association will convene people around the question: What is America?

Participants will reflect on the ways in which American identity is documented, framed, and perceived by its citizens and the world.

Just as Americans have proven their resilience and capacity for change, oral history, as a field, has been undergoing a paradigm shift towards radical inclusivity. The Annual Meeting serves as a gathering space to amplify practitioners finding new possibilities, generating new approaches, reassessing best practices, and recalling and refurbishing the fundamentally democratic impulse of oral history practice.

Find out more about the conference including the program, workshops, tours and registration:

• Oral History Association website

Have you always wanted to learn how to create an oral history interview? Or do you have an interest in recording the memories of elders in your family or community? Maybe you’re wondering whether or not to record remotely, or you’re thinking about conducting face-to-face interviews.

This popular Oral History Victoria two-day online training workshop is for anyone who would like to learn how to prepare, conduct, record and document an oral history interview. Facilitated by two of Australia’s most experienced oral history trainers, and using Zoom technology, you will learn and practice essential interview techniques and discuss important ethical issues.

After the first Saturday sessions, you will conduct your own oral history interview (remote recording or face-to-face), which will be a learning resource in the second Saturday sessions. The workshop will be limited to 16 participants to enable lively discussion and practical work in an online format. Participants will need a computer with wifi connection – the Zoom link will be provided, along with Zoom instructions.

Feedback from past participants on this course

‘The skills I learnt and the discussions that took place were invaluable’

‘I liked it that our activities really tested our comfort zones. It was just terrific.’

‘Al and Sarah are wonderful educators and facilitators!

‘A wonderful learning experience. I’ve definitely fallen in love with oral history too!’

‘I loved the course – learned so much on so many different levels, far more than I would have expected in 8 hours. Well done on awesome Zoom teaching.’

‘Thanks so much for providing us with such a great course. I have already promoted future courses to my friends.’

Tickets

Book via Humanitix here: https://events.humanitix.com/oral-history-interviewing-for-beginners

*Please note, tickets are made available to OHV members first, before being made more widely available from the 2nd of September 2025*

Trainer profiles

Sarah Rood is a professional consulting historian who has been working in the field for the past 20 years. She has seen the uses and applications of oral history change drastically. Motivated by a desire to help communicate the past and to help connect individuals and communities with history and identity Sarah has recorded countless oral history interviews. Firmly believing that everyone has a story to tell, Sarah aims to work with people to record their stories in a way that both documents their experiences and ensures that (with permission) it can be accessed by others in the future. Exploring the relationship between new technologies and oral histories has become a particular area of interest for Sarah in recent years. Similarly, the interplay between the tangible and the intangible and how this plays out in oral history is a constant source of intrigue for Sarah.

Alistair Thomson, national award-winning teacher and now Emeritus Professor of History at Monash University, taught his first oral history workshop in 1985 at the Wangaratta Centre for Continuing Education and has been teaching oral history in both community and academic settings ever since. Al’s oral history books include: Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend (1994), The Oral History Reader (2016), Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants (2005), Moving Stories: an intimate history of four women across two countries (2011), Oral History and Photography (2011), Australian Lives: An Intimate History (2017) and Fathering: An Australian History (2025). Al is currently co-editing The Bloomsbury Oral History Handbook. 

Contact: Alistair.Thomson@monash.edu if you’d like to discuss the course.

Training program format

Timing: the workshop takes place over two consecutive Saturdays:

Saturday 18th and 25th October 2025

On each workshop day the session will go from 9.30am – 4 pm with a lunch break from 12 – 1.15 pm.

Have you always wanted to learn how to create an oral history interview? Or do you have an interest in recording the memories of elders in your family or community? Maybe you’re wondering whether or not to record remotely, or you’re thinking about conducting face-to-face interviews.

This popular Oral History Victoria two-day online training workshop is for anyone who would like to learn how to prepare, conduct, record and document an oral history interview. Facilitated by two of Australia’s most experienced oral history trainers, and using Zoom technology, you will learn and practice essential interview techniques and discuss important ethical issues.

After the first Saturday sessions, you will conduct your own oral history interview (remote recording or face-to-face), which will be a learning resource in the second Saturday sessions. The workshop will be limited to 16 participants to enable lively discussion and practical work in an online format. Participants will need a computer with wifi connection – the Zoom link will be provided, along with Zoom instructions.

Feedback from past participants on this course

‘The skills I learnt and the discussions that took place were invaluable’

‘I liked it that our activities really tested our comfort zones. It was just terrific.’

‘Al and Sarah are wonderful educators and facilitators!

‘A wonderful learning experience. I’ve definitely fallen in love with oral history too!’

‘I loved the course – learned so much on so many different levels, far more than I would have expected in 8 hours. Well done on awesome Zoom teaching.’

‘Thanks so much for providing us with such a great course. I have already promoted future courses to my friends.’

Tickets

Book via Humanitix here: https://events.humanitix.com/oral-history-interviewing-for-beginners

*Please note, tickets are made available to OHV members first, before being made more widely available from the 2nd of September 2025*

Trainer profiles

Sarah Rood is a professional consulting historian who has been working in the field for the past 20 years. She has seen the uses and applications of oral history change drastically. Motivated by a desire to help communicate the past and to help connect individuals and communities with history and identity Sarah has recorded countless oral history interviews. Firmly believing that everyone has a story to tell, Sarah aims to work with people to record their stories in a way that both documents their experiences and ensures that (with permission) it can be accessed by others in the future. Exploring the relationship between new technologies and oral histories has become a particular area of interest for Sarah in recent years. Similarly, the interplay between the tangible and the intangible and how this plays out in oral history is a constant source of intrigue for Sarah.

Alistair Thomson, national award-winning teacher and now Emeritus Professor of History at Monash University, taught his first oral history workshop in 1985 at the Wangaratta Centre for Continuing Education and has been teaching oral history in both community and academic settings ever since. Al’s oral history books include: Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend (1994), The Oral History Reader (2016), Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants (2005), Moving Stories: an intimate history of four women across two countries (2011), Oral History and Photography (2011), Australian Lives: An Intimate History (2017) and Fathering: An Australian History (2025). Al is currently co-editing The Bloomsbury Oral History Handbook. 

Contact: Alistair.Thomson@monash.edu if you’d like to discuss the course.

Training program format

Timing: the workshop takes place over two consecutive Saturdays:

Saturday 18th and 25th October 2025

On each workshop day the session will go from 9.30am – 4 pm with a lunch break from 12 – 1.15 pm.