The oral history preservation kit is a staple brought back from the first iteration of Archivist in a Backpack. This kit focuses on communities interested in oral traditions and storytelling.
Tools: Sound monitoring headphones, Zoom H1n Recorder, Zoom Recorder accessory pack, batteries, interview question cards, and thank you cards
Community Example: Dr. Karida Brown led an extraordinary effort to document the lived experiences of her family’s diasporic community, called the Eastern Kentucky African American Migration Project (https://blackappalachia.org/about/). For her dissertation research in 2010-2012, she collected over 200 oral history interviews and had them archived in the Southern Historical Collection (SHC). Throughout her collaboration with the SHC, Dr. Brown’s oral histories were curated and translated into “pop up exhibitions” at family reunions, a website, and additional papers and artifacts for the archive.