Alabamians are justly proud of their personal heritage, but unrecorded stories, anecdotes and legends within families (and communities) are often lost when storytellers pass on. Many of these experiences have been part of local, national or even international historical events, including wars, hurricanes and societal changes. This presentation, “Famous Lost Words: Recording and Preserving Oral History,” motivates participants to use basic techniques of interviewing and recording to save the human side of their family and community legacy. The interactive session concludes with handouts from oral history Internet sites, and research tips from archivists utilized by the facilitator in his own research as a college/university English instructor and a feature correspondent for the Mobile Press-Register. A question-and-answer period follows the presentation. The personally fulfilling challenge of oral history is to “preserve it or lose it!” And the time to start is now.
