Code of Ethical and Technical Practice
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This Code exists to promote ethical, professional and technical standards in the collection, preservation and use of sound and video oral history material
Archives, sponsors and organisers of oral history projects have the following responsibilities:
- To inform interviewers and people interviewed of the importance of this Code for the successful creation and use of oral history material
- To select interviewers on the basis of professional competence and interviewing skill, endeavouring to assign appropriate interviewers to people interviewed
- To see that records of the creation and processing of each interview are kept
- To ensure that each interview is properly indexed and catalogued
- To ensure that preservation conditions for recordings and accompanying material are of the highest possible standard
- To ensure that placement of and access to recordings and accompanying material comply with a signed or recorded agreement with the person interviewed
- To ensure that people interviewed are informed of issues such as copyright, ownership, privacy legislation, and how the interview and accompanying material may be used
- To make the existence of available interviews known through public information channels
- To guard against possible social injury to, or exploitation of people interviewed
Interviewers have the following responsibilities:
- To inform the person interviewed of the purposes and procedures of oral history in general and of the particular project in which they are involved
- To inform the person interviewed of issues such as copyright, ownership, privacy legislation, and how the material and accompanying material may be used
- To develop sufficient skills and knowledge in interviewing and equipment operation, e.g. through reading and training, to ensure a result of the highest possible standard
- To use equipment that will produce recordings of the highest possible standard
- To encourage informative dialogue based on thorough research
- To conduct interviews with integrity
- To conduct interviews with an awareness of cultural or individual sensibilities
- To treat every interview as a confidential conversation, the contents of which are available only as determined by written or recorded agreement with the person interviewed
- To place each recording and all accompanying material in an archive to be available for research, subject to any conditions placed on it by the person interviewed
- To inform the person interviewed of where the material will be held
- To respect all agreements made with the person interviewed
Origins
The National Oral History Association of New Zealand (NOHANZ) Te Kete Körero-a-Waha o e Motu was established as a result of the first national oral history seminar organised in April 1986.
Objectives
- to promote the practice and methods of oral history
- to promote standards in oral history interviewing techniques, and in recording and preservation methods.
- to act as a resource of information and to advise on practical and technical problems involved in making oral history recordings.
- to act as a co-ordinator of oral history activities throughout New Zealand.
- to produce an annual oral history journal and regular newsletters
- to promote regular oral history meetings, talks, seminars, workshops and demonstrations.
- to encourage the establishment of NOHANZ branches throughout New Zealand.
- to improve access to oral history collections held in libraries, archives and museums.