INTERESTED IN SHARING YOUR STORY?

Recording the stories of people’s lives for the National Library of Australia is an incredibly rewarding job, and an enormous honour. I am deeply passionate about my work and the importance of giving Australians from all walks of life the opportunity to have their voices and stories added to the record of Australian history and cultural life.

The purpose of recording the stories of everyday Australians is essentially to create a meaningful and accurate historical record of life in Australia that will be available to researchers, family members, students and the general public for generations to come.

Currently, I am are interested in talking with people from Chinese-Australian backgrounds, Fijian-Australian backgrounds and people with Scottish-Australian heritage.

If you’d like to know more, or are interested in being interviewed, you can register directly with the library via the links above, or contact me directly via my contact page.

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NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA ORAL HISTORY & FOLKLORE COLLECTIONS:

FROM THE NLA WEBSITE:

The Library’s Oral History and Folklore Collection dates back to the 1950’s and includes a rich and diverse collection of interviews and recordings with Australians from all walks of life, describing our cultural, intellectual and social life.  The collection consists of over 55,000 hours of recordings, the earlier ones dating back to the 1950s when the tape recorder became available.  More than 1000 hours of interviews, music and accents are added to the collection each year. Increasingly the collection is available online or may be requested from the catalogue. You can listen to:

• Folklore recordings – popular culture, traditional songs, dances, music, stories and more
• Interviews with distinguished Australians – scientists, writers, artists, politicians and sports people
• Interviews with people who have lived through significant social trends and conditions – unemployment, the impact of child removals from families,  the Depression, and migration to Australia
• Environmental sound – the historical sound of the built and natural environment.

Some interviews have transcripts or summaries and our online audio delivery system helps you search the content of our collection, which can be searched through Trove.