Sparking Rural Community Dialogues with Digital Oral Histories

In the past, oral history recordings often lay inert and ignored on archival or library shelves. The digital revolution has transformed accessibility to oral histories, primarily by opening digital archives to a variety of users. Nevertheless, many audiences, particularly in rural areas, still do not engage with these digital archives. By incorporating digital oral history content into public programs, however, public historians can involve their audiences in community dialogues that connect past and present and open new avenues for engaging with challenging contemporary issues. This approach employs the dialogue methodology of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience and has been successfully implemented in rural central New York State. Collecting with the intention of incorporating oral histories into community dialogue programs shifts the focus from static preservation and exhibition to a dynamic model of sharing authority, which directly engages one's local community.