Oral History Resources

UCLA Library Criteria for Donated Interviews

Interviews must meet the following criteria in order for the Center for Oral History to consider adding them to UCLA Library collections:

• Interviews must deal with topics that are of general historical significance and must be appropriate for UCLA's oral history and archival collections. If the interviews are not relevant to UCLA's collections or would be better placed elsewhere, Center for Oral History Research staff can frequently suggest a more suitable repository.
• Interviews must be recorded on either analog tape cassettes or on CDs. Uncompressed audio in WAV format is preferred, but some other formats are acceptable as well. Researchers should check with the center's staff before proceeding with their interviews to ensure that the format they are using meets the center's requirements.
• Though interviews need not be conducted on professional quality equipment, the recordings must be of sufficient quality that researchers can hear them clearly and can use them without undue difficulty.
• Each interview must be accompanied by a legal agreement in which the interviewee signs copyright over to the interviewer and in which it is clearly stated that the interviews will eventually be donated to the UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research.
• If the interviews were conducted or overseen by UCLA students, faculty, or staff, they must be accompanied by the approval form from UCLA's Office for Protection of Research Subjects.
• Since researchers will listen to recordings only if they have some idea of what is contained in them, audio recordings must be accompanied by a cover sheet and by a guide to the recording. The guide may be a verbatim transcript, or it may be a timed log on which the interviewer has noted the individual topics covered in the interview and the time in the interview at which they are discussed.

Individuals planning to conduct interviews they may eventually want to donate to the UCLA Library should contact the staff of the Center for Oral History Research as early in the process as possible to ensure that the interviews meet center requirements. Staff members can also provide advice about interview design and techniques and about recording equipment and legal agreements.