Project Title
Oral History’s Design: A creative collaboration. Sustaining visitor (re)use of oral histories on heritage sites: The National Trust’s Seaton Delaval Hall case study.
Detail of Project Plan (Including key milestones)
First Year
Aims
- To seek how this project will create new knowledge in all fields; heritage, design and oral history
- To integrate into the Seaton Delaval Hall (SDH) community
- To create an awareness of the project both in and outside of the SDH community
- To have a collection of oral history interview recordings by the end of the year
- To gather initial ideas on the design of the archiving system
Actions
- Read and research
- Attend SDH staff meetings
- Talk to the volunteers
- Set up online presence
- Record pilot interviews
- Plan, set up and record interviews
- Conduct initial design workshops
Second year
Aims
- To create a bank of archiving system ideas
- To develop and prototype the ideas into real systems
Actions
- Review the recorded oral history interviews
- Use the recorded interviews in workshops with various parties to generate ideas for an archiving system
- Prototype, test and review workshop outputs
- Iterate as appropriate
Third year
Aims
- To unpack the collaborative process
- To write up findings
Actions
- Review and and reflect on collaborative process
- Writing and editing
Note that throughout the project there will be continuous project updates and feedback opportunities with the community around SDH.
Project impact on well being and mitigating risk
Due to the collaborative nature of this CDA there are many players from different fields that are involved in the various stages of the project. As the research student for this project I am acting as ‘project manager’ for this CDA. This role requires me to take up some organisational work alongside my research. However, I believe that with realistic goals, well delegated time, and clear communication with my supervisors, I will be in a strong position to complete my CDA to its fullest potential. In addition to this, I have also been made aware of the resources that both universities offer to support students’ well being.
Ethical Approval
Ethical approval will be sought when method and sampling strategies are finalised.
Summary of proposed project (500 words)
Oral history’s ‘deep dark secret’ is that its focus on collecting histories has inadvertently led to a neglect of the archives and the option to reuse existing oral histories in historical interpretation. This project draws on new developments in oral history reuse theory and practice, in combination with design, to explore how heritage site visitors can become active curators and historians. In doing so, this project will build an on-site oral history archive, which will continuously collect new content from visitors. The project will consider how, in turn, new data can be generated to shape future collecting. The CDA would propagate new knowledge in understanding and addressing visitors’ active engagement in interpreting the past through reusing a National Trust oral history archive. The archive in question is situated at the National Trust property Seaton Delaval Hall (SDH) which is the case study for this project.
The hall is the ideal location for this case study as it is part of a local community whose history is deeply connected to the hall and vice versa. The volunteers and visitors will play a key role throughout the project. They will not only be the source of the oral histories, but will also help inform the design process for the archiving system. Along with the staff at SDH; the Oral History Unit at Newcastle University; Multidisciplinary Innovation Masters students at Northumbria University; and any other interested parties, the volunteers and visitors will collaborate to create and develop an archiving system that is tailored to their needs as a community. The project aims to document and review this multidisciplinary collaboration, investigating the opportunities and challenges that are uncovered in the process. There will be a focus on what each field can learn from the other and how this might inform future collaborations of the same nature. Simultaneously the project will develop a tool kit for heritage sites who are seeking to work in partnership with volunteers and visitors.
The overall aim of working within the hall’s community is to make a sustainable system. This sustainability will work on multiple levels. Firstly, the system has to be sustainable in order to adapt to and accommodate the new stories that are constantly being added. Secondly, it has to be structured in a way that is straightforward for the National Trust staff to use and manage for many years to come. And lastly, and most importantly, the system should aim to be aware of current and future difficulties that could arise in from the world’s ever-growing and complicated digital-ecosystem. By having the project deeply embedded into the culture of SDH from the start, the archiving system can grow together with the community, hopefully opening the door to the possibility of solving oral history’s ‘deep dark secret’.
Extra documents