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Pass the Word is Kentucky’s online oral history discovery tool that serves as a centralized database for oral history collections located at libraries, museums and archives throughout the state that provide access and care for the collections. Launched by the Kentucky Historical Society in 2011, Pass the Word can be accessed online at http://passtheword.ky.gov/. It seeks to make Kentucky’s oral history collections more visible and accessible.
The lack of a single point of access to information about Kentucky oral history collections has long limited their use. By compiling information about collections and making it available online, Pass the Word stimulates interest in oral history and has increased research in oral history collections. Further, Pass the Word is intended to develop a strong network of oral history repositories across the state. By offering an organizational tool that links otherwise unconnected institutions, the project has already encouraged better care and increased collaboration.
The Pass the Word project is currently in the final stages of its principal outreach phase. Outreach has consisted of contacting repositories across Kentucky that might have oral history collections and helping those with collections to inventory and upload their content to the site. The outreach has required extensive travel around the state to visit repositories participating in Pass the Word and assist them with the process of adding their collection information to the site. Travel time and expenses were built into the project to address the reality of the limited resources of time and staff available at participating repositories.
Having the time to make site visit meant we could help inventory, format and upload content for participating repositories. Since collection content was gathered from different repositories, expectedly the information was contributed via different formats if an inventory of the collection actually existed. The import process was structured to meet the needs of those repositories that have data only for interviewee names as well as those with large quantity of collections. The flexibility of different cataloguing methods can be the needs of the site.
The outreach plan began by reaching out to libraries, museums and archives statewide via mass emails. Based upon previous statewide surveys, we estimated that Kentucky had approximately 50 repositories statewide with about 600 oral history collections and over 30,000 interviews. Targeting the repositories identified in the previous statewide oral history surveys as a starting point, we focused on connecting and scheduling repository site visits regionally. After several months of implementing the outreach plan, Pass the Word has over 21,000 interviews listed in the site from over 100 repositories in more than 60 of Kentucky’s counties. Averaging about 5,000 page views per week, the site continues to grow as more interviews are added daily.
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