Historian’s Foreword

“What is an oral history?” is a question even oral historians wrestle to answer. The term has increasingly appeared not only in the domain of Archives, but in museums, public libraries, and public radio. On a first listen, an oral history sounds simply like people talking, perhaps responding to an interviewer’s questions. But the practice is more nuanced. Recollection Wisconsin, a digital project that works to preserve Wisconsin cultural heritage, explains how an oral history differs from other interviewing practices:

…defined as a method of gathering a person’s memories that, through a recording device, creates a digital file that can be preserved for current and future generations [it] differs from other types of interviews in two major ways. First, it should encompass as much of the narrator’s entire lived experience as possible. Second, it calls for a trained and well-prepared interviewer, willing to conduct enough sessions to gather and preserve those “lived experiences.” In short, oral history takes research, practice, planning, and thought.

This type of documentation is a craft. The UW-Madison Oral History Program (UWOHP) records local stories, but also curates these narratives for our community. Our work is directed by The Wisconsin Idea—which I like to think of as “knowledge and community building is power”—and allows us to seek out projects that will enrich campus and our community. College cultural organizations like UWOHP can and should stand at the vanguard of working with university and community partners to create rich primary source material and make it useful to everyone, not just the university community.

How then did we apply this ethos to the UW-Madison Book Arts: An Oral History project? More than the unique and worthwhile collaboration between the Kohler Art Library and the University Archives, this project has allowed another layer of the Artists’ Book Collection to come to life. Over the course of eighteen months (December 2017—June 2019) and primarily through the adept skills of project interviewer Sarah Lange, the project created over 45 hours of audio and 900 pages of transcripts with 21 people who have contributed to our campus’s rich history in the book arts.

“The books are as varied as the artists’ specific life stories,” wrote Lange. “Some books, like Diane Fine’s Forever & Ever, tell personal narratives, while other books, such as John Risseeuw’s Roadkill, deal with political issues. In their oral histories, the artists share the stories behind their books, describe their creative process, and reveal the experiences that shaped them.”

Sound engineer Craig Eley has masterfully created clips from the oral histories that one can hear throughout the e-catalog. Combined with the writing and research of co-curators Lyn Korenic and Tracy Honn and the images of UW Digital Collections photographer Mackenzie Reynolds, they form a rich tapestry of object and lived experience. This project, through its community of partners, realizes the Wisconsin Idea in action.

Troy Reeves

Head, UW-Madison Oral History Program, April 2021