All the Queens Voices by Stephanie Yung

Oral history is a method of historical inquiry rooted in dialogue between an interviewer and an interviewee. The practice predates the written word, yet persists to the current digital age. Oral history bridges the gap between what is captured in history books and the individual experience. As oral history has shifted into the digital age, rich debate has ensued surrounding best practices and new questions and issues continue to arise as technologies advance. One of these touch points is on how far oral history can and should stray from its rooting in the oral and aural tradition. This project seeks to explore whether oral history, a fundamentally oral/aural experience, can and should be visualized. Partnering with Queens Memory, an oral history program based in the Queens Public Library system of New York City, interview sound files and interview metadata were collected, analyzed and visualized.