NRS-19503 | Oral history recordings, transcripts and tape logs [Department of Public Works and Services]

Full description

This series comprises of recordings of the oral history produced by the Department of Public Works. In the mid 1980’s the Department of Public Works established a History project to write departmental histories to coincide with the Bicentennial celebrations in 1988. It was from this initiative that an oral history project was established with a more structured approach and in 1991 an Oral History Committee was formed.

The Chairpersons of the committee were:

• Michael (Mike) Clarke, Chief Engineer, 1991-1992
• Donald (Don) Coleman, Assistant Government Architect, 1992-1995
• Elizabeth (Liz) Lennon, Manager Corporate Personnel, 1995-96
• Neil Creighton, Manager Human Resources, 1996-1997
• William (Bill) Fletcher, Manager Heritage Services (Stoneyard) 1997-2002
• Anthony (Tony) Mitchell, Records Manager 2002-2003

Instead of random interviews the committee focused on activity areas of the Department and, to give coherence and structure to the project, planned to produce a ‘story‘ or summary tape at the end of the project that would be a history of the subject.  The committee also decided, early on, to commission professional oral historians to conduct interviews and prepare the summary tape rather than rely on departmental staff.

In pursuing its objectives the committee adopted the following practices: members proposed topics for the program, suggested possible contributors to be interviewed, and suitable interviewers, and nominated a current or former staff member familiar with the topic who might be able to undertake the project management.  The committee would endorse a proposal and appoint a project manager.  The project manager would prepare a storyline, contact possible interviewees, and brief and liaise with the appointed interviewer to ensure that the interviews and summary tape were completed. 

The recordings can be summarised as containing:

• Oral history interviews and summary recordings undertaken under the Oral History Program  (not all projects resulted in summary tapes)
• Interviews with former staff that were not related to the Oral History Program
• Interviews for projects undertaken by departmental officers as part of a service to clients, but not undertaken under the Oral History Program
• Interviews from projects  acquired by or donated to the Oral History Program
• Recordings of forums, meetings, addresses and activities of the Department
• Radio interviews with Departmental staff related to the Department’s programs

Among the collection are interview tapes with former staff who had contributed substantially through their careers in the public service, but who didn’t fall into an established project – these are the series of ‘General’ interviews and ‘Biographical Interviews’. Included also are recordings of workshops and forums related to project planning, broadcast interviews relating to the Department’s programs, and the interviews of 3 major projects that were not undertaken under the oral history program but were created or received by the department in the course of its business: interviews for an oral history of Millers Point that was project managed by the Government Architects Branch for the Department of Housing, and of Taronga Park Zoo, and oral history interviews relating to the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a responsibility of Public Works Department, that were donated to the Department by the oral historian.

The committee determined that the interviews and summary tapes should be on 60 minute audio-cassettes. 

In January 2010 Information Services in Department of Services Technology and Administration established a program to digitise the recordings to specified formats required by State Records.  This program was undertaken concurrently with other programs and completed in September 2010.  The recordings were saved to a hard disk for transfer to State Records, and backed up on DSTA network drives.  The digitised copies have not been cleaned or enhanced and are as close to the quality of the original recording as it was possible to achieve.

Originally transcripts were made of recordings.  When it became too expensive, tapes were logged: a project was undertaken to retrospectively log the tapes of projects that were not logged at the time of creation.

System of arrangement and control

Initially each project was assigned a sequential project number.  Many projects were proposed and assigned project numbers but did not come to fruition
Projects were identified by subject.  A title was given to the summary tape after it had been produced and accepted: some projects did not have summary tapes and some summary tapes were only unedited drafts.  Where there is not a finished summary tape the draft, if there is one, has been included in the collection. A number of interviews are covered by copyright and will not be available via the internet until copyright has ceased, researchers requiring to listen to these interviews may do so in the Reading Room at our Kingswood location.