Oral History - guide to resources: Science & Medicine

This qualitative project sought to provide an analysis of the 'brain drain' debate of the 1950s and 1960s as a social phenomenon in the context of concerns the United Kingdom was losing skilled scientific and engineering personnel to other countries. The dataset, which can be accessed via the UK Data Service, comprises of 19 oral history interviews with scientists and engineers who emigrated to the United States or Canada in the 1950s or 1960s as well as British policymakers involved in any way in the 'brain drain' debate at this time.

Topics: Education, Politics & Government, Science & Medicine

Keywords: brain drain, emigration, policy

Interviews conducted from 1985 with those involved in British polar science, particularly Operation Tabarin, 1943–45, Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS), 1945–61, and British Antarctic Survey (BAS), 1962–present. This webpage links to several others where the project's results (interview lists, recordings, transcripts, etc.) can be accessed.

Topics: Science & Medicine; Work

Keywords: exploration; science

[This resource is currently unavailable as an ongoing consequence of the 2023 cyberattack targeting the British Library. Currently the only way to access sound files from the British Library collection is by making an appointment to visit the Reading Rooms in St Pancras. Please refer to the interim Sound & Moving Image Catalogue ]

The British Library has an extensive collections of sound recordings, including oral history resources on a wide range of subjects.

Topics: Anthropology & Folklore; Arts & Culture; Education; People; Politics & Government; Science & Medicine; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: portal

The FEPOW (Far East prisoners of war) Oral History Project was established in 2007 with the aim of recording the memories and long-term perspectives of British FEPOW who spent time in Japanese captivity during the Second World War. The project was a partnership between the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), which has had a long-term interest in the health of FEPOW spanning the past six decades. Interviewees were drawn from a wide cross-section of services (Army, Navy, Air Force and Merchant Navy), ranks and areas of captivity. An audio clip from each of the 63 interviews is accessible online, alongside a brief biography of the interviewee. The clips are searchable by interviewee name, country, camp and ship (transportation and repatriation), or browsable by theme.

Topics: Science & Medicine; War & Conflict

Keywords: military history; POW; WWII

Was at http://www.diabetes-stories.com/index.asp
This project conducted 100 oral history interviews with individuals with diabetes, members of their families, and healthcare professionals. The interviews record experiences of life with diabetes dating back to the 1920s, including information on changing treatments and the impact of diabetes on individual life history and identity. This resource provides online access to unedited audio recordings, short audio extracts, written summaries and full transcripts. The interviews are either browsable by section (People with Diabetes; Family Members; Healthcare Professionals) and within this by decade and topic, or are searchable by keyword, phrase or subject.

Topics: Science & Medicine

Keywords: family; healthcare; medicine

This website provides online access to approximately 150 audio extracts from oral history interviews conducted with First World War veterans, their families, and those who served on the home front. The full recordings are held by the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive.

Topics: Science & Medicine; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: medicine; military history; propaganda; science; WWI

This resource provides online access to 50 audio extracts from the Imperial War Museum's collection of oral history interviews with veterans and individuals who lived through the First World War. The sound clips cover the experiences of those stationed in various global theatres of the war as well as those who remained on the home front. The website also provides online access to an array of written primary source documents offering insight into the personal experiences of men and women during WWI. To access this resource from outside the Oxford University network, follow the link through SOLO.

Topics: Science & Medicine; War & Conflict

Keywords: bombing; medicine; military history; Navy; POW; RAF; WWI

Healthtalkonline provides online access to over 2000 video and audio clips of people sharing their experiences of health-related conditions and illnesses. The collection of these personal stories was designed to help patients, families, carers and healthcare professionals, rather than explicitly provide a resource for academic researchers. They offer, however, to provide an insight into social attitudes towards health and illness, and allow an examination of the social impact of health-related issues.

Topics: Science & Medicine; People

Keywords: death; health; family; medicine

[Unavailable in aftermath of British Library cyberattack 2023]
British Library Sounds has made available online the complete audio recordings of 34 interviews conducted from 1994 to 1997 by Dr David Tyrrell with those who worked at the Common Cold Unit in Salisbury from 1957 to 1990. They are accessible to all Higher and Further Education institutions.

Topics: Science & Medicine; Work

Keywords: medicine; science

The Institute of Contemporary British History (ICBH) has organised over 100 oral history ‘witness seminars’ since 1986. Witness seminars are group interviews that bring key participants to a particular event or policy together in front of an audience of expert academics and interested parties. The agreed transcripts from the majority of past seminars are now available to download from the site, along with expert introductions and additional background information. The past seminars are listed under five subject areas: Defence History, Diplomatic History, Economic History, Political History, and Science and Technology History. If a transcript is not yet currently available for download, please email Dr Michael Kandiah or Dr Virginia Preston.

Topics: Politics & Government; Science & Medicine; War & Conflict

Keywords: diplomacy; foreign policy; politics; science

[no longer freely available.] In the First Person is an in-depth index of thousands of collections of English language personal narratives from around the world. Along with diary entries and letters, the index contains approximately 17,00 entries for oral history. The index is searchable by keyword.

Topics: Anthropology & Folklore; Arts & Culture; Education; People; Politics & Government; Science & Medicine; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: portal

This study examined health history, beliefs and attitudes to health and medical care, inter-generational relationships and social history with members of a grandmother generation. The transcripts of 46 oral history interviews conducted with grandmothers from 1977 to 1978 are accessible online. The transcripts have all been converted by OCR from paper to searchable Word and .rtf format. In order to download the interviews it is first necessary to sign into the UK data service using your institutional login.

Topics: People; Science & Medicine

Keywords: family; healthcare

Amongst other sources related to the history of the area, this website provides online access to approximately 150 complete audio recordings held by the East Midlands Oral History Archive (EMOHA). The interviews primarily relate to life in Leicestershire from the turn of the century to the 1930s and cover a wide variety of topics from WWI to influenza, education and work. A number of recordings also relate to the interviewees experiences abroad, particularly in India. The interviews are all summarised and categorised and available to search by keyword.

Topics: Arts & Culture; Education; People; Politics & Government; Science & Medicine; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: agriculture; community; engineering; family; religion; WW1

This project recorded the experiences of people in the UK living with haemophilia and HIV by means of life story interviews. Audio and transcript extracts from eight interviews with individuals with haemophilia and HIV are available online, as are seven interviews with members of their families. Extracts from the interviews have also been arranged into a number of browsable key themes.

Topics: People; Science & Medicine

Keywords: death; family; healthcare; medicine

‘Observing the 80s’ makes available online a number of digitised archival holdings, which relate to the 1980s, from both Mass Observation and the British Library Oral History Collections. The aim of bringing these collections together in an accessible format is to stimulate academic research that spans current approaches to the decade, whilst also encouraging the collections’ use by a wide range of subject disciplines. From the Mass Observation collections, written responses from across the decade by 23 men and women, from a variety of social backgrounds and ages, were chosen for digitisation. The entire audio recordings of 26 interviews from the British Library Oral History Collections were also selected for digitisation.

Topics: People; Politics & Government; Science & Medicine; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: finance; healthcare; union

As part of their National Life Stories programme, the British Library conducted 200 in-depth life story interviews with contemporary British scientists, engineers and technologists. The interviews are accessible on-site at the British Library and are increasingly being made available online. It is currently possible to listen to over 60 of the interviews via the British Library Sounds website. As well as being listed alphabetically by name, the interviews are also divided by subject.

Topics: Science & Medicine

Keywords: engineering; environment; medicine; science; technology

The complete audio recordings of 102 interviews with individuals involved in the recording industry are available to Higher and Further Education institutions through British Library Sounds. Interviewees include artists, engineers, managers, producers, musicians, record company personnel, wildlife recordists, journalists and broadcasters.

Topics: Arts & Culture; Science & Medicine; Work

Keywords: engineering; journalism; music; radio

In 2012 a series of oral history interviews were conducted with staff members who worked for the Science Museum Group during the period 1973-2000. This was a period of important institutional change for the Museum, encompassing the tenures of two very different Directors: Dame Margaret Weston (1973-1986) and Sir Neil Cossons (1986-2000). Video extracts of these interviews are available online.

Topics: Arts & Culture; Science & Medicine

Keywords: museum

This oral history project, undertaken by the University of Warwick in association with Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum (LASGM), investigated the changing practice and experience of spa therapy during the second half of the twentieth century. 21 written extracts, from interviews conducted with former staff, patients, and medical practitioners of the Royal Pump Rooms in Leamington Spa are currently available online. There are plans to make the entire interview transcripts accessible in the near future.

Topics: Science & Medicine; Work

Keywords: healthcare; leisure

This website was created by The Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth along with a number of supporting partners. It makes accessible online a number of audio extracts from oral history interviews with those who have lived and worked with the sea in the twentieth century. The audio extracts have been divided into five key themes: Women at Sea; Diving into the Past (about the effort to find, excavate and raise the Mary Rose); Naval Medicine; People and Changing Technology; and Family Matters.

Topics: Science & Medicine; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: family; medicine; Navy; technology; women

This project tells the history of Sellafield in West Cumbria by means of oral history interviews with 100 people about their personal experiences of the site. Interviewees include current and retired employees, as well as local residents and opponents. Short audio extracts and complete interview transcripts are accessible online, although it is first necessary to register for a login password. The transcripts are also searchable by concept/topic. The complete recordings are available to listen to at the Cumbria Archive and Local Studies Centre, Whitehaven.

Topics: Science & Medicine; Work

Keywords: community; industry; politics

This is a school run project which began from a desire to record the experiences of individuals who attended the school’s Veterans’ Day in 2008. The complete video recordings of 43 oral history interviews are now available to watch online. The interviews are divided into two sections. The first section is on ‘The Second World War 1939-45’ and includes interviews with members of the fighting forces, with individuals employed as Land Girls, Bevin Boys and in the ATS, and also with individuals who experienced the war in Germany or were affected by the Holocaust. The second section of interviews on ‘Britain and the world 1945-’ covers a wide variety of subjects including the Korean War, sport, science and political involvement.

Topics: People; Politics & Government; Science & Medicine; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: Holocaust; migration; mining; military_history; refugees; sport; WWII

This website provides the compete interview transcripts and summaries of 50 oral history interviews conducted between 1999 and 2001 with users or former users of the British mental healthcare system. The interviews were designed to capture the memories and experiences of those who lived in asylum based hospital institutions between the 1930s and 1985, before these began to be closed and replaced with different models of treatment. The website allows you to search the complete interview transcripts by keyword or browse them by category. A selection of video excerpts from the interviews is available online, and the complete set is accessible to view by appointment at the British Library, St Pancras, where it is archived as part of the Life Story Collection.

Topics: Science & Medicine; People

Keywords: healthcare; medicine

This website, initiated by a Wellcome Trust funded research project, has collected together a number of oral histories from lesbian, gay and bisexual people who have undergone therapy in an attempt to make them heterosexual. Interviews with professionals who developed and conducted such treatments have also been collected. 26 of the most revealing narratives that arose from the research are available to read online through the Narratives section of the website (16 are from patients and 10 from professionals). It is also possible to read and listen to views about such treatments on the Interviews page.

Topics: People; Science & Medicine

Keywords: homosexuality; medicine; sexuality

Although not oral history, this resource provides online access to thousands of written personal testimonies about all aspects of World War Two.

Topics: People; Science & Medicine; War & Conflict

Keywords: bombing; intelligence; military history; Navy; POW; propaganda; RAF; women; WWII

YouTube provides access to a large quantity of resources, both oral history interviews and information videos on the conduct and practice of oral history. Some organisations, archives and oral history projects have their own YouTube channels.

Topics: Anthropology & Folklore; Arts & Culture; Education; People; Politics & Government; Science & Medicine; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: portal