I was very pleased to be invited to give a presentation on oral history to a local U3A group last week. There were about 17 older people who came along and I received some very positive and encouraging feedback. We had some initial technical problems, which always seem to happen, but it didn't spoil the morning. I was able to tell the group about oral history and how most oral historians now use digital recording equipment. This has been the major development in oral history in recent years as it has made it so much more accessible. The stories can be accessed on the internet. For example, the slave narratives, held in the Library of Congress can be listened to. I played a few of the excerpts from interviews that are on my Oral History Blog and the group enjoyed them. I then did a couple of "mini-interviews" with two elderly gentlemen, aged 91 and 93, to demonstrate a little of the procedure.
