Personal Struggles and Triumphs Can Make For Great Reading

Ohio University Press published a pioneering book in 1997 with Linda Spence’s Legacy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History. The book was designed to prod a story out of people about the different phases of their lives. The focus was on getting older people to talk about their experiences, and the end-result was a set of writing that was “mesmerizing and revelatory,” according to Booklist. A new book along the same lines is coming out from Ohio, it's called Catching Stories: A Practical Guide to Oral History. The book has five authors, all of whom are professional historians and researchers: -- Donna M. DeBlasio, director of the Center for Applied History at Youngstown State University; Charles F. Ganzert, a communications professor at Northern Michigan University; Davis M. Mould, a research dean at Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University; Stephen H. Paschen, an archivist and librarian at Kent State University; Howard L. Sacks, director of the Rural Life Center at Kenyon College. These experts tell readers with little or no experience how to plan and implement an oral history project. These are the kind of stories from everyday people that the media and certain history books tend to overlook. The guide is practical in that it tells readers everything thing they need to know, from recording devices, legal issues, and the interview process, that will assist readers in the important work of documenting memories, and in collecting the stories of community and family. This book should find a place on library shelves and in bookstores across the country.