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Oral History Interviewing Methods & Project Management: Permissions & Access

Background

Another important to-do for early in your process: be sure to send your narrator a copy of the permissions form that they will be asked to sign upon the conclusion of their interview. Downloadable PDF copies of the SCARC permissions forms are available online at these links: (English, Espaňol).

Fundamentally, the permissions form serves as documentation of mutual understanding between interviewer and narrator that the interview was collected ethically, and that it will be preserved and made available in a manner that is comfortable to both the narrator and to SCARC. This understanding will be shared with future generations of archivists who are entrusted with continuing to preserve and provide access to the content that you are gathering.

It is worth noting as well that, if required by circumstances, verbal consent statements recorded at the beginning of an interview are an acceptable, if less desirable, alternative to a paper permissions form.

The Permissions Form

The SCARC permissions form largely consists of four bullets, which we present here with some additional explanation of what they mean to convey: 

  • The Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center will have the right to use the interview recordings, photographs, and written materials, such as transcripts or finding aids, for research, educational, and other purposes. This includes the rights of publication in print and in electronic form, such as placement on the Internet/Web for access by that medium, the right to rebroadcast the interview or portions thereof on the Internet and in other electronic formats, and permission to transfer the interview to future technological media. 
    • Analysis: By agreeing to this, the narrator grants SCARC the right to provide access to their interview content, including description of the content in an archival finding aid, provision of access to researchers upon request and, ultimately, fully open access to the content through contextualization and posting on the web. SCARC would also receive the right to repurpose portions of the interview for activities like, for example, exhibits or educational videos.
  • As an unrestricted gift, I understand that I relinquish any literary rights and legal title, including any copyrights, which I may possess to the contents of the interview, recording(s), and transcript(s). I understand that the full literary rights of this memoir shall pass to the OSU Libraries and that no rights whatsoever are to vest in my heirs now or at my death. 
    • Analysis: Essentially what this means is that OSU Libraries assumes the task of administering copyright for your interview. As such, should future researchers request use of the material for a project of their own, they will be asked to complete the SCARC Notification of Use form in which they specify the content that they wish to use and agree to credit SCARC as the repository holding the original. SCARC will also remain the ‘evergreen’ administrator for permissions related to the interview, such that the work of evaluating use requests will never fall upon a narrator’s estate.
  • The gift does not preclude any use which I may want to make of the information in the recordings myself. 
    • Analysis: It is important to stress that deposit with SCARC does not inhibit a narrator’s use of the content for their own purposes as well. Once added to the archives, the narrator should still feel empowered to, for example, share the interview with family and friends, or use its contents in a memoir or other project. SCARC will always be happy to work with you to facilitate your access to the interview contents.
  • I understand and agree that all materials will be deposited in the Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center.
    • Analysis: In this, SCARC identifies itself as the repository that will hold the interview in perpetuity, and that will take responsibility for preserving it from generation to generation. 

Restrictions on Access

If your narrator is uncomfortable with any of the language on the SCARC permissions form, it will usually be fine to annotate the form accordingly. The basic mission of SCARC is to collect, preserve and provide access, but there are many types of restrictions that we can place on archival materials as necessary, and oral interviews are no exception. 

All of this noted, a cornerstone principle for SCARC is to provide fully open access to all of our archival materials. So unless otherwise noted, a narrator’s interview will be made freely available for researcher use and could very well be released as a transcribed and contextualized digital object through one of our web portals. It is also important to stress that, while narrators can choose to remain anonymous, SCARC will still require a signed permissions form and cannot guarantee that anonymity would be fully protected were the materials made available for researcher use. (In other words, a researcher may be able to discern details about a narrator’s identity by listening to their interview or reading the transcript.)

Lastly, please contact us before engaging in an interview or oral history project if you intend to use the SCARC permissions form. If it turns out that your interview or set of interviews is not an appropriate match for our collections and you find another repository that is a better fit, they will more than likely require a different permissions form.