The Oral History Australia Biennial Conference provided a collegial setting for the launch of the Identifying Precarious Victorian Oral History Collections Project on 22 November 2024. The launch gave project lead Dr Anisa Puri a unique opportunity to introduce the project to an audience of almost 200 oral historians from across Victoria, Australia, and beyond. With the project now ‘on the radar’ of oral history practitioners in Victoria, they will be well placed to engage with the project as it develops into the future.

In providing an overview of the project, Dr Puri described how it aimed to provide a one-off snapshot of existing Victorian precarious oral history collections and to illuminate the state of these collections. Dr Puri explained that the project will need oral historians—and those who work with oral histories—to encourage eligible collection holders to complete the project’s online form so we can all gain an understanding of oral history collections that exist outside of major cultural institutions in Victoria. This project’s final report and public database, which will be released at the end of the project, will be invaluable for any future work advocating for support, preservation, and potential use of such collections, explained Dr Puri.

The Identifying Precarious Victorian Oral History Collections Project shared the limelight with another exciting initiative launched at the conference: Oral History Victoria’s Creating and Preserving Oral History Collections project. The synergies between these two important projects—one identifying precarious oral history collections in Victoria and the other strengthening practice in making and preserving new oral history collections—meant they were ideally placed to be launched together. It’s an exciting time for oral history in Victoria!