The Mountains to Metropolis Oral History Project, Kennesaw State University

FAIN: PW-285031-22

Kennesaw State University Research and Service Foundation, Inc. (Kennesaw, GA 30144-5588)
Tamara Livingston (Project Director: July 2021 to present)

The Mountains to Metropolis Oral History Project will lay the foundation for a scholarly resource that documents the intersection of rural Georgia and modern urban development by collating, curating, and enriching oral histories in the Kennesaw State University Archives and Special Collections, which serves as the institutional repository for multiple oral history projects and constitutes a rich, largely underused resource. This proposal seeks to fund a pilot project to enhance access to oral histories in the KSU Oral History Collection. Since the 1970s, the collection has grown to include over 700 individual interviews documenting institutional and local history. Our team will select oral histories covering education; industries; experiences of African Americans; civil rights; politics and government; and rural life. This core collection will be indexed, cataloged, and preserved and made available through a custom portal enhanced with the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer software.

Associated Products

Mountains to Metropolis Oral History Portal (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Mountains to Metropolis Oral History Portal
Author: Dr. Tamara Livingston
Author: Christian Kelly
Author: Amber Smith
Author: Dr. Kate Matheny
Abstract: The Mountains to Metropolis Oral History Portal seeks to lay the foundation for a scholarly resource that documents the intersection of Georgia’s rural north and modern urban development in the region north of Atlanta by collating, curating, and enriching oral histories in the Kennesaw State University Archives. The interviews document the lived experiences of the people of Northwest Georgia throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century during a period of tremendous growth and change. Subjects include rural life, the rise of industries such as aircraft manufacture and healthcare, the civil rights movement, politics and government, public and higher education, and the experiences of African American communities. The collecting programs date from the 1970s to the present day. The Oral Histories: The Mountains to Metropolis Oral History Project is seeded by the oral histories collected by Dr. Thomas "Tom" Allan Scott through the Kennesaw State University oral history project. This project consists of nine series: the Cobb County Oral History Series (1973-), the Kennesaw College Oral History Series (1978-1985), the Kennesaw State University Oral History Series (1986-), the Cherokee County Oral History Series (1992), the Georgia Government Oral History Series (1998), the North Georgia Oral History Series (1998-2000), the Cobb NAACP/Civil Rights Series (2009-2010), the Marietta Housing Authority Series (2011), and the Southern Polytechnic State University Series (2014), as well as a sub-series, HIST 4425 50th Anniversary Series, which consists of a subset of interviews within the Kennesaw State University Oral History Series (2011). The majority of these interviews were conducted by Thomas Scott, Professor of History at Kennesaw State University with others collected as class projects by students in his classes.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://oralhistoriesatksu.org/
Primary URL Description: The Mountains to Metropolis Oral History Portal
Access Model: Open Access

Enriching Oral Histories as Scholarly Resource (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Enriching Oral Histories as Scholarly Resource
Author: Christian Kelly
Author: Dr. Tamara Livingston
Author: Dr. Kate Matheny
Abstract: Oral histories are a vital component in the efforts of museums, archives and libraries to document and preserve the history and stories of our local communities. As the rise of communication technologies such as Zoom and increasingly sophisticated recording capabilities of smart phones make capturing and recording oral histories easy and quick, the challenge is not so much the creation of the oral histories but how to manage the recorded artifacts once they are created and convey the richness of oral histories to researchers and patrons. In this session, we will discuss a project undertaken by the Kennesaw State University Archives to reevaluate our oral history collections and begin to create a consistent, enriched user experience with a dedicated portal and the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer application. As we wrap up the final year of our NEH-grant funded project using student interns to create rich metadata and indexing, the panel will share our experiences and lessons-learned, as well as tips to adopt this model in other collecting institutions. Participants will: Consider the challenges posed by oral history collections for researchers and archivists as an opportunity to implement a new approach to cataloging and managing oral history collections Gain insight into the OHMS application and its benefits for researchers and community stakeholders Explore approaches for incentivizing and managing student workers engaged in the time-consuming, intellectual work of indexing oral histories
Date: 10/04/2024
Conference Name: Society of Georgia Archivists/Georgia Library Association Joint Conference

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