The Presentation and Long-Term Preservation of the Oral Histories in the Houston Asian American Archive

Abstract

The complex, multi-part interviews in the Houston Asian American Archive are created by a rotating group of students, with training, direction, and oversight provided by Dr. Anne Chao (HAAA Program Manager, a part-time position), and support by the Fondren Library. These digital oral histories include full transcripts, consent forms, photographs, and associated analog ephemera, as well as files which provide time-syncing and indexing data to enhance user interaction with the interviews. Tracking of these interviews as they are developed into their multiple parts uses cloud-based online tools and storage options that are available to anyone, while preservation of the final online versions and access to them are enabled via Rice University’s institutional repository. This article will explore the complex system used to provide robust online preservation and access to complex oral histories using undergraduate student work, part-time faculty and library support, cloud-based tools and storage, and space in an institutional repository. Challenges in maintaining this system will also be explored.