In 2000, the United States Congress passed legislation to create the Veterans History Project. This archive – kept at the American Folklife Center in Washington D.C. – aims to collect, preserve and make accessible “the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.”
Robert Weinstein’s presentation deals with the process of creating a Veterans Oral History archive for the Brooklyn Public Library. It recounts the social challenges in collecting oral histories and addresses the technical difficulties in presenting them on the library’s existing website. And it ends with an exploration of the cultural, communal and educational benefits of collecting and utilizing oral histories.
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