Preserving Appalachian Stories & Knowledge
Oral History
Preserving stories, voices, and lived experience across Appalachia
For more than thirty years, Appalachia-Science in the Public Interest has worked with elders, community members, students, and partner organizations to document the knowledge, traditions, and personal experiences that shape life in the mountains. Oral history at ASPI is a thread running through our cultural, educational, and community work, grounded in the belief that stories held in Appalachian communities deserve to be heard, recorded, and carried forward.
Whether you came here to listen, to learn how it’s done, or to share a story of your own, there’s a place to start below.
Browse the Archives
ASPI’s oral history work is preserved across several partner archives — at Berea College Special Collections, the Louie B. Nunn Center at the University of Kentucky, and through the Kentucky Oral History Commission. For a curated entry point, citations, and direct links to digitized interviews:
Featured Project: Creative Aging
The Creative Aging Project is ASPI’s flagship oral history initiative, a community-based program that connects older adults and younger participants through storytelling, reflection, and shared experience. Interviews, workshops, and small gatherings produce recordings that become part of ASPI’s organizational memory and, over time, the regional archive record.
What We Do
Conduct Interviews
Recording the voices of Appalachia.
Build Archives
Preserving and cataloging oral histories.
Share Stories
Bringing Local history to the community.
Why Oral History Matters
Stories hold knowledge that doesn’t always appear in textbooks: how people lived, worked, adapted, and cared for their communities. The interviews ASPI has helped record over the years capture appropriate technology in everyday use, traditions of music and craft, mountain ecology as elders remember it, and the texture of community change across generations.
This work:
- Preserves cultural memory across generations
- Centers local voices and lived experience
- Supports place-based education
- Strengthens community identity and resilience
It connects directly to ASPI’s broader mission of linking science, culture, and everyday life in Central Appalachia.
Oral History Projects
Appalachia-Science in the Public Interest’s oral history work happens through several pathways.
Community Oral Histories
ASPI collaborates with community members to identify participants, develop interview themes, record conversations, and preserve recordings, with a focus on local traditions, land and forest knowledge, appropriate technology in daily life, regional change, and cultural heritage. Some projects produce a single set of interviews; others build over years.
Student and intergenerational projects
Universities and student groups have engaged with ASPI through service learning and place-based education, with oral history methodology often part of the work. Students have recorded interviews with elders, documented local traditions, and contributed to community archives. If you teach or organize a student group and want to develop a project, contact us.
Organizational interviews
ASPI continues to record life-history and organizational memory interviews — conversations with longtime volunteers, board members, leadership, and regional figures whose work has shaped the organization and the surrounding community. These materials are being added to ASPI’s organizational archive at Berea College as they are processed.
Historic Projects (1990s)
From the early-to-mid-1990s, ASPI conducted several oral history projects with elders (over 65) about different aspects of Appalachian life, culture, technology, and ecology.
Two earlier ASPI projects are cataloged at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky:
- Appalachian Appropriate Technology Oral History Project (1992–1994) — appropriate technology in food, building, waste utilization, and daily life
- Appalachian Simple Lifestyle Expression and Experience Oral History Project (1994) — mountain life, change over a lifetime, skills, and creativity around basic necessities
A separate Appalachian Historic Forest Conditions Oral History Project (mid-1990s, BCA 0286), led by Mark Spencer and Timi Reedy, lives at Berea College Special Collections and is available online through Berea’s digital systems.
For browsing, citation, and access, see Oral History Collections.
Workshops, training, and regional meet-ups
ASPI’s strategic direction includes ethical and technical training for oral history: how to plan a project, conduct interviews with care, and connect recordings to archives and communities. Much of this happens through workshops, meet-ups, and regional partnerships rather than a single static curriculum.
Watch Events for the next regional gathering ASPI helps host or promote, and contact us with questions.
Regional meet-ups (Kentucky and Central Appalachia)
ASPI has collaborated with the UK Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History and the national Oral History Association to host free regional meet-ups for oral historians and community practitioners. These gatherings have brought together libraries, universities, historical societies, community groups, and local communities — and OHA membership is never required.
2022 meet-ups. UK Nunn Center archivists Jennifer Bartlett and Kopana Terry co-chaired the first meet-up at the William T. Young Library in Lexington (August 12, 2022). Out of those discussions, Jennifer and Kopana created KYOH-NET, an informal listserv connecting Kentucky oral historians and anyone interested in the field — join and introduce yourself. ASPI hosted the second meet-up at our main office in Mt. Vernon (September 17, 2022) with fifteen participants from ASPI, UK, Berea College, East Tennessee State University, the Kentucky Historical Society, Lexington Public Library, and local artists and community historians.
2023 meet-ups. ASPI helped coordinate three more regional gatherings: Lexington Public Library Central branch (June 2, 2023, including a visit to the Kentucky Room); Perry County Public Library in Hazard with the Southeast Kentucky African-American Museum & Cultural Center (August 26, 2023); and Bowling Green with the WKU Department of Folk Studies & Anthropology (November 17, 2023).
All of these events were free, open to the public, included refreshments, and welcomed people of all experience levels.
Training Pathways
Service learning and education. Oral history connects to ASPI’s service learning work, where interview methodology can be part of place-based learning experiences. Contact us if you’d like to develop a student project.
Kentucky Community Scholars Program. In summer 2023, ASPI served as the organizational site for a pilot hybrid cohort of the Kentucky Community Scholars Program, in partnership with the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Folklife Program. Four new graduates — Aaron Banther, Bugz Fraugg, Kyra Higgins, and Mark Spencer — completed folklife and fieldwork training, presented projects, and joined more than 250 certified Kentucky Community Scholars. Check the Arts Council’s program page for current enrollment.
Selected Resources
These are commonly shared at regional meet-ups. ASPI does not control external sites; links may change.
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| OHA Principles and Best Practices | Core ethical and methodological guidance from the Oral History Association |
| OHA Statement on Freelance, Independent, and Contract Oral History Labor | Fair labor practices for independent oral historians |
| OHA Grants and Awards | Funding opportunities through the national OHA |
| Nunn Center — Oral History Resources | Guides, tools, and archive resources from UK’s Louie B. Nunn Center |
| UK Libraries — Oral History Research and Resources | University of Kentucky research guide |
| Kentucky Oral History Commission | State programs, preservation grants, and oral history support |
| Kentucky Folklife Network | Regional folklife network and magazine |
| Baylor University — Introduction to Oral History | Accessible introductory guide to oral history practice |
Oral History – Doing it yourself: a short guide
If you’re starting your own oral history project — for a class, a family, a community group, or a research interest — these are the basics. For depth, the resources at the bottom of this section are excellent.
Before the Interview
- Choose a topic and identify participants
- Prepare open-ended questions
- Obtain informed consent
- Test your recording equipment in advance
During the Interview
- Choose a quiet location and position your microphone close to the speaker
- Ask open-ended questions; allow pauses
- Listen actively; avoid interrupting
- Monitor audio while recording; record a backup if possible
After the Interview
- Save and label files clearly (suggested format:
LastName_FirstName_YYYY_Location.wav) - Document metadata (date, place, project, interviewer, brief content notes)
- Create a transcript if resources allow
- Archive in a stable location — ideally a partner archive that can preserve the recording long-term
Equipment
A smartphone with a quiet room and a close microphone produces usable recordings. Dedicated digital audio recorders, lavalier mics, and video cameras add quality. For archival masters, prefer WAV; for sharing, MP3 is fine.
Get Involved
There are several ways to participate in this work:
- Share a story. If you or someone you know has stories worth preserving — about land, work, family, community, music, craft, or mountain life — reach out. We’ll point you toward the right project or partner.
- Attend a meet-up or workshop. Watch Events for the next regional gathering, and join the KYOH-NET listserv to hear what’s coming up across Kentucky.
- Bring a class or community group. Oral history pairs well with service learning, history, and environmental education. Contact us to talk about a project.
- Partner with us. Libraries, museums, schools, historical societies, and community groups: we’re always interested in collaborating.
- Support the work. Documentation, archiving, and community programs run on donations and volunteer time.
Support This Work
Donations and volunteers help keep documentation, archives, and community programs going.