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A hundred-and-fifty years ago, young ni-Vanuatu men were brought to Australia to work on sugarcane plantations in northeast Queensland.  The practice, known as Blackbirding, went on for 41 years.  Now the Blackbird descendents are trying to track down their families and a new association’s being set up to help them.  Oral historians in Vanuatu say around 1,000 men were loaded every year on to ships to work the Australian cane fields, from 1863 to the early 20th century. For full story including radio broadcast click here.

Stories told by residents form part of a new interactive tour of Kiama launched this week for mobile devices and smartphones.  App versions are available for Apple iPhones and iPads, as well as for devices running Android software, designed to lead residents and visitors on a 45-minute guided walking tour, complete with sound recordings and photos.  Kiama library manager Michelle Hudson said the stories were gathered as part of an oral history project several years ago, but the app offered a way to bring the tales to more listeners.  For full story click here.

There’s a story lurking inside every bottle.  So begins Max Allen’s book, The History of Australian Wine.  The 200-plus pages in this hardback tell the story of Australian wine in the 20th century and is based on a series of interviews historian Rob Linn conducted with industry figures.  “It’s neither an official history nor a definitive history; it’s an oral history,” he writes in the introduction.  For full story click here.

The Rutgers Oral History Archives started in 1994, conceived and initially funded by the Class of 1942, to collect stories of the World War II generation, many of them veterans. The archives take on two or three interns each semester and train them in oral history techniques, helping students engage in research in order to bring new resources into the classroom. The archives have expanded their scope to include just about anyone with a Rutgers or New Jersey connection who has a story to tell. There are now 650 histories, 26,000 pages of transcripts, accessible online, with more being processed.  “Oral history helps us understand the past experiences of ordinary men and women,  because few people write down their own histories or leave extensive records,” said John W. Chambers, professor of history and an academic advisor to the Archives.  For full story click here.

A project exploring the professional authority and public influence of women lawyers is on the agenda for the upcoming Australian Women Lawyers (AWL) conference.  The Trailblazing Women and the Law project is being carried out by an interdisciplinary academic team in partnership with AWL, the National Library of Australia, the National Foundation for Australian Women and the Federal and Family Courts of Australia.  It has been running as a pilot project for the last 18 months but has just secured funding through the Australian Research Council’s linkage grants system.  For full story click here.

One of the most popular exhibitions held by the Lakes District Museum is back this month, and the museum director has been invited to give heritage preservation tips to Coromandel residents. The museum in Arrowtown had presented Speaking of Change: Memories of the Wakatipu 1900 to 1960 in the early 1990s as a major exhibition based on oral history recordings of 40 senior residents who were interviewed about their lives in the 20th century. For full story click here.

To date, the project has preserved about 75,000 oral and written histories of veterans of every war from World War I to the current conflicts. It is the largest collection of its kind in American history.  For full story click here.

The Middleton Life local history project launched last week, with local residents contributing towards history panels, a stained glass window and a special heritage edition of South Leeds Life magazine.  For full story and to view the video click here.  This is an example of the use of oral history.

A federal appeals court in USA last week proved what many had known already: Boston College researchers should not have promised full confidentiality to former Irish Republican Army members who were subjects in an oral-history project. The court’s decision should compel BC to provide recordings that British authorities believe can help solve decades-old murders. In addition, other colleges should heed the lesson, and make clear that future confidentiality agreements with interview subjects be conditioned on legal approval.  For full story click here.  You can also watch a television current affairs discussion about this important  issue for oral historians at this link  http://www.rte.ie/player/#!v=10037637