Designing a National Online Oral History Collecting Initiative: The Occupational Folklore Project at the American Folklife Center

Abstract

This case study introduces the Occupational Folklore Project, a multi-year oral history initiative that seeks to capture a portrait of America’s workforce through interviews with workers across the United States. The project, designed by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, is still being beta-tested. The progress report presented here provides information about how the project is using an innovative application of online digital technology to collect and process documentary materials from geographically dispersed fieldworkers.