What a treasure the British Library offers in its collection of National Life Stories. According to the Web page for the collection, “National Life Stories … was established in 1987 to ‘record first-hand experiences of as wide a cross-section of present-day society as possible’. … NLS’s key focus and expertise has been oral history fieldwork. … Each collection comprises tape-recorded in-depth interviews of a high standard, plus content summaries and transcripts to assist users. Access to these details is provided via the Sound Archive’s on-line catalogue. Each individual life story interview is several hours long, covering family background, childhood, education, work, leisure and later life.”I wonder if other countries (like the US) have life-story projects on this scale?
