"Community Chat on Oral History Release Forms" September 26, 2024

The SAA Oral History Section invites you to join us Thursday, September 26, 2024 at 1-2pm EST for a community chat with Archivist David Olson about his recently published article in the American Archivist, “Forms, Formations, and Reforms,” on the evolution of the oral history release form from its origins to current practices and future trends. The event will consist of a conversation between Olson and OHS Chair Cyrana Dowell, followed by an audience Q&A. We encourage you to read the article and come with questions and comments on all things related to oral history release forms.

Please share widely! Contact Cyrana Dowell with questions about this event at Cyrana.Dowell@mtsu.edu. 

"Community Chat on Oral History Release Forms"

Date: September 26, 2024

Time: 1-2pm EST / 10-11am PST

Speaker: David Olson, Columbia University Oral History Archives

Moderator: Cyrana Dowell, OHS Chair and lecturer at Middle Tennessee State University

Registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIkdeuupjMjGNHjZKuwxW5AEEYRA01hidfr#/registration

Article abstract:

Oral history release forms are critical for documenting narrator intentions around access to and use of interviews, a key component of ethically managing this document type. Unfortunately, repositories are full of interviews with missing or problematic releases. To explain this phenomenon, the author reviews historical archival and oral history literature to trace the development of release form conventions and the historical trends in practice that explain the current state of documentation in archives. Important trends in this trajectory include professionalization of oral history, decades of inconsistent application of best practices, siloed discourses of archivists and oral historians, institutional review boards, and changing access expectations in the age of the Internet. The author also assesses current positive professional trends to prevent future release form problems and analyzes release form scenarios that may remain stubbornly at the discretion of archivists’ professional judgment or values.

Author bio:

David Amel Olson is archivist for the Oral History Archives at Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Before that, he worked with oral histories documenting the radical left and labor at New York University’s Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Olson holds an MA from NYU’s Archives and Public History Program and an MLIS from Long Island University’s Palmer School of Library and Information Science. His introduction to archives was working at the Social Welfare History Archives while pursuing a BA in history from the University of Minnesota. He has also previously worked as support staff in the legal sector.