Documenting Cultural and Historical Memory: Oral History in the National Park Service

Abstract

"Documenting Cultural and Historical Memory: Oral History in the National Park Service" provides an overview and assessment of the current state of oral history projects and programs within the National Park Service. Oral history has long been a particularly valuable resource and tool for the Park Service in preserving cultural and historical memory. Its rangers, interpreters, historians, archaeologists, ethnographers, and cultural landscape specialists use oral history to document the history of individual parks, as well as the events and people the parks commemorate. They use oral history to create interpretive exhibits, movies, and videos and to record perspectives on major events, figures, and movements. The Service initiates and manages a large number of unique and significant oral history projects and programs.However, too often the value of its oral history projects and collections has been diminished because of funding shortages, poor equipment, insufficient training, inadequate preservation measures, or other problems.