Challenges in Accessing the Oral History Collection among Researchers in Malaysia

Challenges in Accessing the Oral History Collection among Researchers in Malaysia

Ahmad Zam Hariro Samsudin, Siti Habsah Sh Zahari^*, Nurul Syfa’ Mohd Tokiran, Mohammad Afiq Mohamed Sopiee, Zaharudin Ibrahim

School of Information Science, College of Computing, Informatics and Mathematics, university Technology MARA (UiTM), Puncak Perdana Campus, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

*Corresponding Author

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2024.8120378

Received: 10 December 2024; Accepted: 24 December 2024; Published: 25 January 2025

ABSTRACT

Oral history holds a significant role in documenting the cultural heritage of a country. It is a method to record and document the past from the experience and event of the figures that experience them. However, the lack of awareness on oral history collection made that oral history inaccessible particularly in Malaysia. Other than that, unorganized cataloguing, description, copyright and licensing restriction make this valuable collection inaccessible among researchers. Therefore, this paper would like to explore the challenges in access the oral history collection particularly in Malaysia. The literature survey has been used as method to explore and investigate the challenges in accessing oral history collection among researchers in Malaysia. The suggestion regarding these issues as well as the development of the semantic ontology-based information system in accessing the oral history collection should be developed in the future.

Keywords—records and document management, oral history, cultural heritage, access, preservation.

INTRODUCTION

Oral history, according to Baum (1995) as well as Sommer and Quinlan (2002), is a type of recorded interview with a question-and-answer style conducted by an interviewer who has some subject-matter expertise, and the interviewee speaks from his personal experience. Meanwhile, oral history has also been defined as the methodical process of gathering oral histories from individuals that have been passed down orally from one generation to the next through interviews (Mosweu, 2011). Stratford (2019) asserts that oral history is a qualitative research method dedicated to engaging with and preserving the memories, experiences, stories, and knowledge of living individuals. It is significantly important to capture and document the knowledge particularly using oral history method in exploring and analyzing the information related to cultural heritage. Besides that, the oral history method could also build public understanding of what has happened in the past as well as understanding the social life of the previous generation and history of the country. Some significance on the historic events like declaration of independence, war or battle, terrorist attack or any other events should be recorded or written up from the perspective individuals who experience those kinds of events. The difficulties that they faced could be shown and recorded when oral history was conducted.

There are several basic types of oral history projects consisting of life histories, topical histories, and thematic studies, sites or artifacts specific research (Texas Historical Commission, n.d.). Life histories related to the experiences of the individual from childhood until adulthood have the chronology of the events being recorded. Meanwhile, the topical histories related have the focus on events, organizations or eras, such as Waco Tornadoes in 1953 (National Weather Service, n.d), World War II and other kinds of historic events. Oral history on thematic studies related with themes like love, conflict, hope, religious education and others have these categories to be not common being implemented by oral historian. The oral history project related to sites or artifacts on the specific research is related within the museum collection. The oral historian could select the appropriate category in conducting the oral history project. Various countries have conducted the oral history method based on different categories to rebuild the historic event and get clear understanding on what has happened in the past.

According to Oral History Association (2023), the main purpose of possessing the oral history collection is to create the opportunity for the public to interact during the interviews. That is important for the public to access reliable, authentic and trusted information coming from the oral history collection. Countries like Malaysia that has institution which holds oral history collection should provide public access to this kind of collection. Thus, it is significantly important to provide access to the oral history collection among researchers, scholars, academicians and students, so that it will contribute in providing them reliable and authentic information. However, several challenges have been discovered that hinder them in accessing the oral history collection. Hence, it is further discussed in this paper.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Oral history has been defined as a study and practice in gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of individuals, societies and participants on the historical events (Oral History Association, 2023). According to Cambridge Dictionary (2023), oral history is defined as information related to historical events or period that has been told by people who faced the experiences. Meanwhile, Britannica Dictionary (2023) mentions that oral history refers to recorded information about the past that the interviewer acquires from talking with people about their experiences. Over the years, previous scholars mostly defined oral history as spoken stories on what have happened in the past. However, Sommer and Quinlan (2018) defined the term oral history in their book “The Oral History Manual” in more detailed as stated:

“Oral history is primary-source material created in an interview setting with a witness to or a participant in an event or a way of life for the purpose of preserving the information and making it available to others. The term refers both to the process and the interview itself”.

The oral history method has been widely used in preserving historic events in the past by various countries around the world. Organizations or institutions like libraries, archives and museums own their oral history collection and those collections can be accessed by the public. Ahmed (2018) mentioned that the earliest use of oral history in the United States was by archivist in an effort to “supplement the records” that all too frequently concentrated on the elites, or to provide context for documents already under the physical care of archives. Meanwhile, in Hungary, the oral history methods have been widely used by Hungarian social science since 1980s. Most of the historical interviews related to political taboos, have rebuilt the history of the 1956 revolution and the Shoah (Lénárt, 2022). According to Mandell (2023), from Sudan to Yemen to Iraq, oral history initiatives are advancing intricate and nuanced histories while fostering linkages with diasporic communities. Those countries have used the oral history method in collecting and understanding the past events for in-depth understanding of the historic events.

In Malaysia, the oral history project has been conducted since 1957. The topic and area covered for the oral history project in Malaysia included the colonial era between 1873 and 1930, Independence Day 1957, cultural heritage in Malaysia, historic building and other topics. The first cultural institution in Malaysia that has initiated in capturing the oral history and oral tradition is Sarawak Museum (Mohamad et al., 2012). Meanwhile, the National Archives of Malaysia conducted the oral history project in 1965 with film actress Tengku Azizah Tengku Ariffin (Kamarudin & Denison, 2022). The institution has also continued conducting the oral history project with public figures such as politicians, teachers, journalists and soldiers (Lim & Wong, 1999). Besides, the Raja Tun Uda Library in Shah Alam, Selangor, has undertaken a similar initiative in relation to the Selangor royal family and the Selangor Chief of District. Right after that, several organizations have also been involved in conducting the oral history project in preserving the historic event particularly in Malaysia. Meanwhile, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) under the School of Information Science (previously Faculty of Information Management) has also incepted a course with regard to oral documentation which undergraduates and postgraduates conduct the oral history project based on designated topic to explore and investigate previous historic events that have taken place in Malaysia.

Meanwhile, Sarawak Museum and National Archives of Malaysia have initiated the oral history project, but the local history and community needs are still not effectively recorded and preserved (Kamarudin & Denison, 2022). Besides that, the lack of promoting the oral history collection make those collections infrequently being used by the public community in understanding the previous historic event. Based on previous research of scholars, there are several challenges that influence the lack of access on the oral history collection in Malaysia. Further discussion will be deliberated to identify and explore the challenges in accessing the oral history collection particularly in Malaysia.

METHODS

In exploring and investigating the challenges of accessing the oral history collection, literature survey has been conducted to explore the research by previous scholars in identifying the key themes of those challenges. Literature survey refers to the documentation of a comprehensive review of published and unpublished works from secondary data sources (Obada, 2014). Secondary data refers to using the data or information that have been gathered by others for a different purpose. The data gained from various databases have been collected and analyzed during selection based on different topics. In this study, various data have been explored and discovered including the sources from websites, journal articles and books in exploring the crucial challenges relating to the access of oral history collection. Data and information from journal articles and books were discovered first, before getting additional information from websites. The data extracted were then further discussed in exploring the oral history definition as well as challenges that influenced the access on the oral history collection based on work of previous scholars.

FINDINGS: CHALLENGES OF ACCESSING ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

The collection of oral history is a highly significant and valuable source of information for scholars, academics, historians, and researchers. This is supported by a study conducted in Indonesia, which highlights the role of oral history collections as a primary resource for researchers and academics to access information from original sources (Mardiyanto, Agniya, & Hidayat, 2024). Precisely, it provides insights on the lives and experiences of people that may involve directly and indirectly on the historic event or situation in the past. This kind of collection could also be one of the main sources of information to be referred to by students in learning the history of their country. Besides that, oral history collection also provides more comprehensive and accurate pictures on what has occurred in the past historic events. The reason makes oral history one of the important collections that need to be accessed by scholars, especially with regard to information and records management.  Scholars, academics, historians, researchers, and students face various challenges in accessing oral history collections worldwide. Additionally, research on accessing oral history projects remains limited (Garwood, 2024). While organizations may possess extensive oral history collections, numerous challenges, issues, and barriers often hinder individuals from utilizing these valuable resources.

A. Lack of Awareness

Unawareness of the scholar, academician, historian, researcher and student on the oral history collection posed by the organization, make those collections untouchables by individuals who need it for their research. This has been supported by Zimmerman and Hamilton (2011) that mentioned that scholars are not aware of the existence of oral history collection that may be relevant with their research. The lack of awareness on oral history collection has made it inaccessible particularly in Malaysia. This has also been mentioned by Kamarudin and Denison (2022) that resources of oral history collection are limited to oral history practitioner that makes them difficult to access. Oral history collections are often housed within information centers or institutions such as museums, libraries, and archives. However, due to limited visibility, these collections frequently go unnoticed and are underutilized by scholars. Fell and Ou (2022) emphasize that oral history collections recorded through interviews should be made more discoverable, particularly through physical access to their transcriptions. Institutions must actively promote the existence of these collections to ensure they are accessible and utilized by the public. Meanwhile, according to Baily (2019), he stated that little empirical evidence exists in the way the institution is promoting the digital oral history collection and facilitating the community to be engaged with those collections. Therefore, the need to know the availability of oral history collection will increase awareness on its availability for the public and community.

Information provider institutions like libraries, museums and archives should announce the availability of the oral history collection to the public, so that they are made aware of its existence in these organizations. Collaboration with the university library is significantly important, hence scholars in various fields could reach and be aware of the availability of the collection. This is supported by Seifi, Kazemi, and Khademizadeh (2019), who highlight the significant role of academic libraries in developing oral history collections through processes such as identification, preservation, promotion, accessibility, and organization. Promotional materials such as advertisements, brochures and flyers are traditional methods that could be used to announce the availability of oral history materials. Furthermore, these institutions could also advertise the availability of oral history collection advertised in social media like Facebook, Tiktok, X (also known as Twitter), Instagram and other well-known social media platforms. Apart from this, the staff from these institutions could also make a live video for the community in order that they are made aware of such collections, particularly for young researchers and scholars. This method reaches not only a young audience, but also the older audience being aware that they use this kind of method. When the collections reach the target audience, clear procedure in accessing the oral history collection has to be informed to the users, hence the process of accessing the oral history collection is made easier.

B. Unorganized Cataloguing and Description

The challenges in accessing the oral history collection are due to disorganized cataloguing and describing by the organization itself. Fell and Ou (2022) highlight that previous cataloging procedures have significantly hindered the discoverability of oral history collections. According to Schrum, MacKay, and Parker (2017), there are so many oral history collections that are not-well catalogued and described. The unsystematic way in organizing the oral history collection may possibly slowdown in accessing those collections. Without the metadata with regard to the oral history collection, namely area, title, description of oral history, format and additional information, this complicates the search made by users wanting to access on the oral history collection.

Therefore, the oral history collection should be described in order that the user will understand the content in it. The collection should be organized systematically, as it helps scholars to access it without difficulty. Effective cataloging and integrating the collections into archival databases will facilitate the broad dissemination of oral history resources to the public (Forsyth, 2018). In 2009, the Oral History Association developed the principle and best practices in managing the oral history collection. Through this manual, the oral historian could arrange the collection based on metadata and description. In this manual, metadata and description are particular categories of gathered information that serve to contextualize oral history interviews and enable finding and access in a variety of ways (Oral History Association, 2023). Other than that, the oral history could manage the information of OH collection using the International Standard Bibliographic Description. The table below shows the information that has to be collected from the oral history collection.

Table I. Metadata and Description from Archiving Oral History: Manual of Best Practices (Oral History Association, 2009

C. Copyright and Licensing Restrictions

Oral history collections are commonly copyrighted by the interviewer or interviewee. There are also circumstances that the interviewer and interviewee jointly collaborate to provide the copyright for the transcription that they have already prepared. The copyright posed in the interview transcription required the users who are scholars wanting to access those oral history collections to obtain permission from interviewer as well as interviewee. All the oral history collections are required to fulfil the copyright and licensing form so that the scholar can use it based on terms and conditions grounded on the condition given in accessing those forms. The purpose in acquiring the copyright and licensing has the archivist and oral historian to be concerned on the possibility of oral history collection being exploited or abused because the scholar received instant access which can be easily manipulated. Calamai et al. (2018) emphasize that issues of authorship and copyright in oral history collections are critical concerns from both library institutions and legal perspectives. Without proper documenting of the oral history collection, they can also be misused by irresponsible individuals who have ill intentions.

However, copyright and licensing create difficulties for the scholar in accessing the oral history collection owned particularly by organization. This statement has been supported by Thompson (2022) that mentioned it will become a barrier to accessing the oral history, for example, the researcher cannot use oral history interviews in their research because those transcriptions are copyrighted by interviewer or interviewee, hence the former cannot obtain the permission to do so. Having been copyrighted by the interviewer and interviewee, these scholars who want to refer and request those collections are obligated to obtain permission to access them. According to Scrum, Boyd and Gruenberg (2015), some oral history collections are licensed to specific institutions or groups, and scholars may need to go to those institutions to access them. The scholar or user from far away is required to come to the institution to get permission to access the collection from the interviewer and interviewee. Therefore, these are difficulties faced by the users or scholars in accessing the oral history collection.

Organization or institution who holds the oral history collection should appropriately prepare the procedure and manual in accessing the oral history collection. Moreover, the institution or organization could also use oral history interview under Creative Common License. The License allows individual creator of organization or institution to have a standardized way to obtain the permission in using creative work (refer to oral history collection) under copyright law (Creative Common, 2019). That kind of copyright should be detailed and each of the conditions in using the oral history collection should be mentioned in the agreement. Figure 1 below shows a sample of the oral history release form from Kansas State University transferring the ownership of oral memoir or oral history, purposely for historical and scholarly purposes.

Figure 1: Oral History Release Form (Kansas State University, n.d.)

SOLUTION IN ACCESSING ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

Lack of awareness, cataloguing and description as well as copyright and licensing restriction are factors that hinder accessing the oral history collection among users, scholars and researchers. Therefore, the immediate solution in accessing the oral history collection should be explored in facilitating their access. Various studies have been conducted on Oral History Management System (OHMS) over the past decades. Many of these studies highlighted the requirement for understanding, conceptualizing, and designing a database system (Gallacher & Treleven, 1988); improving bibliographic control and access to oral history interviews (Bruemmer, 1991); metadata model (Hunter & James, 2000); the creation, indexing and provision of access (Gustman et al., 2002); and more recently on the provision of online access to oral history (Daniels, 2009). In the local (Malaysia) context, however, there appears to be no studies to date conducted on oral history system. Some solutions regarding the access of oral history collection are developing and enhancing the OHMS by adopting the semantic-web technology towards enhancing the web application usage among researchers in Malaysia. This kind of application system is beneficial to researchers or academicians in accessing the oral history collection in future.

Semantic-Web Based Approach for Oral History Management System (OHMS)

There are various OHMS developed by previous scholars in enhancing the access on oral history collection. However, lack of study has been mentioned with regard to enhancing the OHMS using the semantic web (SW) based approach. The purpose of using this approach could facilitate searching, navigating and preserving the collection in the future. Besides that, the component of knowledge management and database management has also been included in the SW based approach for OHMS. Previous scholars have developed the framework for the semantic web-based approach for OHMS, based on the taxonomy description to show the categories and sub-categories of the entitled benefits (Samsudin, Miah, & McGrath, 2013). In the following displays the conceptualization of the SW approach and traditional OHMS framework towards accessing the oral history collection.

Figure 2: The SW Approach Benefit towards OHMS to Facilitate in Accessing the Oral History Collection (Samsudin, Miah & McGrath, 2013)

Figure 2 above shows the SW Approach Benefit towards OHMS to facilitate accessing the oral history collection that has been conceptualized by Samsudin, Miah, and McGrath in 2013. The SW approach benefit assists the OHMS developer in improving the feature that exists in the OHMS for better access on the oral history collection. In this conceptualized framework on SW approach, there are five main components namely searching, knowledge management, database management, content management and navigating. The semantic web components are significantly important in improving the semantic web system for oral history collection.

CONCLUSION

In summarizing, this study has explored several challenges that hinder access to the oral history collection, namely due to lack of awareness as well matters related to cataloguing, description, copyright and licensing. The factors that have been mentioned create difficulty for scholars to access the oral history collection. As a result, they are not able to use those materials to build understanding on the experience of people in terms of their feelings regarding the historical events that have taken place in the country. The availability of oral history is significantly important to promote the oral history material held by the organization, in order that scholars could be aware of the existence of such materials. Besides that, oral historians’ task is not only using oral history method in collecting data, but they should also catalogue and describe those materials, so that users could retrieve quickly when they learn about the description of the oral history collection. Other than that, copyright and licensing should be done earlier after that collection could be accessed by the public. If the interviewer and interviewee agree regarding the copyright, users could use the collection without any problem. However, if the organization does not obtain the copyright and licensing from interviewer and interviewee, it thus becomes difficult for the users to use the oral history materials for their research.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This article is funded by the Geran Insentif Penyeliaan (GIP), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM).

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