Stories Matter: free, open source oral history software

A subject that may be of interest to researchers conducting oral history projects, or teachers conducting oral history projects in their classrooms: Steven High's Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling at Concordia University in Montreal has recently completed the second phase in the development of their free, easy-to-use open source oral history database software called Stories Matter.

For those of us who have laboured through hours of transcribing oral history interviews, then struggled with audio software to create clean-sounding clips for use in exhibitions and on websites,this is a very exciting development.

In phase I (completed in May 2009), oral historians could download the software and build oral history databases on their local computers. In phase II (completed in January 2010), the database is now online, allowing researchers to merge databases and access them remotely. Stories matter allows users to clip, index and export audio and video recordings – and so it represents a real alternative to transcription. And it's free!

The Centre encourages oral historians to test the software and to send comments and suggestions to stories@alcor.concordia.ca. If you have access to video conference facilities, they can provide your Oral History Centre, Institute, or Conference with a short 60-minute workshop. They would also be willing to write short stories for your on- or off-line newsletters.