Saturday, October 18, 10:00 am, Monthly Program via Zoom.
Listening with Intention: From Humboldt to a Statewide Storytelling System
A presentation by Tammy Farmer (with a brief demo by Zack Ellis founder of TheirStory)
California has deep local histories but no shared pipeline that takes an oral history interview from consent, transcript, archive, short captioned clip to citable archive across university systems. Tammy Framer is piloting a practical, human-centered workflow in Humboldt County. It includes participant-centered consent, narrator-reviewed transcripts, light indexing, and short clips that always point back to the full source. The aim is simple: Listen • Archive • Research • Advocate — meeting today’s attention spans with oral history storytelling using TheirStory.
Tammy is facilitating a second campus session with Cal Poly Humboldt and TheirStory in November. She is making this presentation to IHS to be sure she is asking all the right questions in a non-biased collection framework. The goal is to get people and communities talking again.
The presentation will focus on three phases:
- Empowering Seniors in Humboldt County (IRB-approved pilot)
- Oral History Van to bridge the access gap (like Bookmobile or Bloodmobile)
- A shareable statewide model (CCC/CSU/UC)
Tammy Farmer is a BA candidate in Leadership Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt and a former volunteer firefighter/EMT and 911 operator.
Zack Ellis (TheirStory) will give a brief, non-sales demo showing how transcript-based clipping, captions, and open exports support the workflow . TheirStory is an end-to-end oral history and audiovisual research platform used by over 120 universities and cultural institutions to streamline their process for recording, transcribing, indexing, editing, and making accessible the audiovisual stories of their communities. (See this article from the University of Connecticut on their use of TheirStory.)