Our Oral History Interview (OHI) collection is one of our most-used collections. With our migration to the new platform, we also reformatted our OHI transcripts to appear as PDFs (called Digital Documents) rather than as plain text on the website.
This page includes some basic information about how to search for and view an OHI transcript in AIP's digital repository. If you are interested in accessing the audio of an OHI, please use our catalog to find the call number and fill out an item request form for access. More information about using our catalog and requesting materials can be found in our Catalog Navigation Research Guide.
Please note that not all of our OHI transcripts are available online. If you cannot find a transcript that you think should be available, please email us at nbl@aip.org.
From the OHI home page, the simplest way to find an OHI conducted with a particular person is to enter their name in "Last First" format, in quotes, in the Filter Results box on the lefthand side of the screen (circled in red).
This should generate a search of the OHI collection that returns any results in which the person you are searching for was the interviewer or was mentioned and tagged in the interview. The search automatically defaults to arrangement by title in alphabetical order. If there are still too many results to look through, you can try changing how the results are sorted by using the dropdown menu in the upper left corner of the page (circled in red), directly above the filter panel. To change the direction of arrangement, click on the arrow at the left of the box and select Asc or Desc.
This method should also work to return results by keywords, but be sure to follow these additional tips:
Due to the migration, the links from our catalog to our repository are currently broken. If you have browsed the catalog and found an oral history you would like to access, here is a simple way to find it in the repository.
From the catalog result, find the NBL System Identifier. This five-digit number should appear towards the top of the catalog record.
Copy that number and open the repository: https://repository.aip.org.
Paste the number into the search box on the home page and press enter.
This should return a result of only the single oral history you identified in the catalog.
Our oral histories are classified as Digital Documents, which are the equivalent of a PDF. Clicking on a digital document will open the item in a new page along with its technical and descriptive information.
The document will appear at the top of the page in a viewer that allows you to navigate through the document. There are several ways to move through a document:
To change the size of the document as it appears in the viewer, you can use the Zoom options in the center of the top toolbar (circled in red). Zoom in and out using the plus and minus signs, or select a fixed view using the dropdown menu. You can also enter full screen mode by selecting the two arrows at the far right of the top toolbar (circled in purple) and choosing Presentation Mode. To exit full screen mode, hit escape on your keyboard.
Finally, you can search within a digital document by clicking into the viewer window and hitting CTRL + F on your keyboard, or by clicking the magnifying glass in the top toolbar (circled in red).
