A digital oral history created between an academic library and a Spanish seminar course.

What is it about?

A collaborative oral history project was recently completed at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW) by students enrolled in a Spanish seminar course and library staff members at the University. The course, “Hispanics in N.C.: Service Learning and Research,” was created and offered as one component of a public programming grant awarded to UNCW by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA) through these institutions' initiative called “Latino Americans: 500 Years of History.” The course provided students with an opportunity to interview individuals in the southeastern North Carolina (SENC) Latino community about their experiences in the United States. Students captured an audio recording of the interview which they later transcribed and provided a photograph of the interviewee. Library faculty and staff members were tasked with creating a digital collection highlighting the oral histories. Working within a limited timeframe and no additional funding, planning and implementation for the digital collection was completed by librarians in the library’s Special Collections, Technical Services, and Information Technology and Systems departments. Technology and skillsets already in place were reimagined to create a final product titled, "Somos NC: Voices from North Carolina's Latino Community." This article seeks to provide a practical discussion of the oral history project, outlining library staff members’ processes and project workflows as well as assessment and reflections. Synthesizing knowledge gained through the experience, we hope to provide an example of how, through collaboration and innovation, small to midsized libraries can accomplish similar projects.

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Why is it important?

It shows how a creative solution could be achieved without extra funding, equipment or manpower.

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