Oral historians are always talking about the best way to archive and preserve oral history interviews. At this moment in time, we’re all working to digitize interviews in our collections recorded on cassette tapes, since cassette tapes degrade and break over time. Storing things digitally seems like an archivist’s dream because digital files can be copied over and over without effecting the original and you can easily store them in multiple places. But what’s still the most reliable way to preserve an oral history interview? Paper. Good ol’ (acid free) paper.
Proof positive: A woman in Minnesota recently found a notebook belonging to her great-grandmother. The notebook contained the “transcript of the pictorial history of the Sioux nation as kept by the White Horse family. Told by Chief White Horse of White Horse Station, Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, South Dakota, on September 8th, 1910.” Hear more about this wonderful rediscovery on Minnesota Public Radio.
