The voice in the museum: Personal oral narratives and social identities in public history (with particular reference to work and workplace cultures)

This proposed Fellowship is designed to expand existing collaborations and enable the transfer of knowledge on oral history methodology, theory and practice, with particular reference to the cultural history and meaning of work in the twentieth century from HE (Professor McIvor) to Glasgow Museums. Within the workplan of forward-looking heritage agencies such as Glasgow Museums, simply providing access to oral history collections is no longer considered sufficient; instead the over-arching aim is to use oral testimonies to achieve cultural participation. This project aims to develop the effective use of 'voice' in Glasgow Museums by unlocking the potential of its considerable collection of interviews. In particular, the application of analyses of changing work and social identities by the Knowledge Transfer Fellow (KTF) and the named Research Assistant (RA) to the oral history collection will encourage new interpretations of Glasgow's recent history, expand the use of interviews within Glasgow Museums, its associated exhibitions, and educational outreach programmes and make the collection more accessible.

Glasgow Museums is dedicated to improving the care, audit and access of their 'nationally significant collections'. It recognises the fundamental role of oral history in future collecting, however it lacks guidance on what topics and social groups should be targeted to help consolidate and develop the existing oral history resource. The KTF/RA would identify 'gaps' in the Museums collections and formulate an oral history collecting policy, based on their academic expertise and knowledge of current oral history collecting methods and practices, making Glasgow Museums interview archive invaluable to researchers. This Knowledge Transfer Fellowship will produce an educational resource for schools (focusing on social identity at work and the meaning of work from oral testimonies), develop Glasgow Museum's web pages cataloguing the oral history collection and access information, work within the Open Museum's outreach programme and develop HE teaching materials, thus widening access to Glasgow Museum's oral history collection to researchers and students in HE, and to the wider Glasgow Museum audience. The proposed new Work Placement in Oral History undergraduate class will continue the knowledge exchange relationship, facilitating a new round of oral history interviewing targeting the identified 'gaps' in coverage.

Drawing upon almost three decades of experience researching the meaning of work / social identities at work as a professional historian and more than a decade of working explicitly with oral testimonies (including several innovative interviewing projects exploring diverse aspects of work culture from shipbuilders, to miners and to the oral history of higher education in Glasgow) this project will utilise the knowledge and expertise of the KTF within the public history domain. Using work-life histories, the KTF/RA will show how narrative analysis of oral testimonies can reveal much about wider society. Intersubjectivity and the relationship between collective memory and individual memory will be a particular focus, an issue that has lain at the heart of much of the most recent innovative research using oral history and personal testimonies (including over the past five years by the KTF - see publications).

Our vision of the lasting legacy of this project will be a fundamental transition in the use of the voice in public history, both in terms of breadth across Glasgow Museums and in terms of depth - with more critical reflection on the ways in which memories are manufactured and history reconstructed. This has the potential to make the past more interesting, meaningful and engaging, and thus to attract new audiences to the museums.

This project will benefit Glasgow Museums, its staff and its users in a number of significant ways. Key to this is the potential of the project to increase cultural participation in Glasgow's history and heritage through access to, interaction with and analysis and dissemination of oral testimonies.
It will benefit key users in the following ways:

Glasgow Museums
It will enhance Glasgow Museums' reputation for innovating and facilitating research of interest to social, cultural and economic historians and hence raise its profile, especially relating to oral history, the history of work, and changing identities. The project will enhance a working relationship with the Strathclyde's History Department, particularly the Scottish Oral History Centre.
The project will open up access to a clearly defined set of oral interview materials to researchers and the general public all over the world. The development of web pages cataloguing the content, access information and scope of these oral interviews will help Glasgow Museums' own efforts to disseminate the collection and potentially unlock 'hidden' histories
The outcomes of this project will also benefit the wider community by feeding into Glasgow Museums' Open Museum, which takes the collections beyond the museum walls and out into the community. Thus the public can benefit from new interpretations which feed into Glasgow Museums' work/output.

Staff
New interpretations of Glasgow Museums' significant oral history collection will be produced in conjunction with key research, curatorial and learning and access staff, who will receive in-depth training on up-to-date oral history analyses. This approach and technique of analysis can then be applied to other areas of individual and community experience by trained Glasgow Museums staff.
The project will enable critical reflection on the collection of oral history research and explore the ways in which the 'voice' might be used more effectively in future exhibitions and outreach programmes, assisting a range of future projects within Glasgow Museums, including a plan to consolidate social history collections in a final phase of development at Glasgow Museums Resource Centre.
Within Glasgow Museums, the KTF/RA will present papers to the Curatorial Research Group, Human History Forum, and annual Collections Research Conference while within the broader museums sector, will present to the Scottish Museums Forum and prepare an article for submission to Museums Journal.

School pupils and teachers
This project will deliver curriculum workshops to schools, allowing schoolchildren and teachers to actively engage and interact with the past through oral testimonies.
The KTF and RA will also present to the Glasgow Museums programme of Continuing Professional Development for primary teachers on effective means of using the oral history collection in the primary school curriculum.
The development of an education resource, 'Shipyards to Office Blocks: Voices of Glasgow People in the Workplace c. 1950-2000' (including a CD of oral history excerpts) for schools, will enhance the participation and engagement of young learners in the museums' Learning and Access Service.

Cultural impact
By incorporating a formal collecting and preservation policy on oral history in Glasgow Museums - and one based on the knowledge accrued by the Fellow and the Scottish Oral History Centre (and professional legal procedures and ethical frameworks in oral history best practice) - into the outputs, this programme of work will ensure the long-term survival and further expansion of the under-utilised oral history collection. In turn, this will help to develop a culture within the heritage / public history sector that gives rightful recognition to the fundamental importance of memory, transmitted through voice and recorded electronically, both in archivin