| Media Review | Oral History Review, 31.1

MEDIA REVIEWS

OROITZAPENAK MEMORIES: BASQUE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT. Produced by Basque Museum and Cultural Center, Boise, Idaho; http://www.basquemuseum.com/oralhistory/index.htm.

OROITZAPENAK MEMORIES: VOICES FROM BASQUE AMERICA. Produced by The Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno; http://basque.unr.edu/oralhistory/.

During my recent experience living and working in Boise, Idaho, I have been told that the city and the region that includes southwest Idaho and eastern Oregon has one of the largest concentrations of people of Basque heritage outside of Europe's Basque country. There have been several individuals of Basque descent who have made their names known through their activity in local and regional civic and political endeavors. Idaho's capital city includes a historic Basque Block, containing a Basque bar, restaurant as well as a Basque market. The Block also holds the Basque Museum and Cultural Center (BMCC), an amalgam of historic structures that envelopes the more recently built museum.

In late 2001 the BMCC launched the oral history section of its website http://www.basquemuseum.com. From the home page, it is easy to find the oral history link, which sends you to Oroitzapenak Memories: Basque Oral History Project. Internet users will find a list of over 200 narrators. These are interviews conducted in the 1970s, the 1990s, and the early 2000s. Clicking on individual interviewees, one can find a brief biography and a picture of the narrator. Then one can link to other pictures, summary and names and places indexes, and for the more recent interviews, audio clips. The sound can run from under a minute to well over five, and the index offer details of the recording by minute and in full sentence format.

The home page of the BMCC oral history section mentions the Museum's collaboration with the Basque Studies Library (BSL) at the University of Nevada, Reno. This group's homepage, http://basque.unr.edu, offers numerous subcategories to choose from, including oral history. The oral history section opens up to a small page with a brief explanation about the oral history project with five possible search links, including "List of Interviews," which leads one to nearly 50 interviewees in the BSL's collection. Further navigation leads to a page quite similar to a BMCC's narrator's page, which includes a picture of the person, a brief biography, and links to additional pictures, an index, and audio clips.

Both sites look similar, which is understandable when you realize that both were funded through a Basque government grant (although it should be noted that the grant to the Nevada group actually went to the Reno's Zazpiak Bat Basque Club), allowing both groups to work in some concert on this effort. Each also furnishes a link to the other's website, as well as linking to the Basque government's site.

There are differences between the two, however. By not including all the interviews on its front page, BSL's front page is much easier to navigate. They also have a "Find by Location" section, which would serve researchers well by allowing them to search the recordings by locations not only within Idaho and Nevada but also the Basque region. Unfortunately, it is still under construction.

The BMCC's site does offer roughly 200 percent more interviews, providing a wealth of information about this distinct ethnic group. All the interviews that this reviewer accessed included the detailed indexes that help interested individuals ascertain each interview's content. Several of the interviews on the BMCC site were conducted in a language other than English (be it Basque or Spanish); the indexes are all done in English, allowing people not proficient in Basque or Spanish to determine the content of these non-English interviews.

The BSL site appears to include full audio for numerous interviews, broken up into 5 to 10 minute segments. This provides a great opportunity for researchers to listen to the entire interview. The length of the interviews in the BSL collection are much shorter than the BMCC's contribution, meaning that the BMCC's recordings probably go into more detail regarding each narrator's life story.

The creators of both sites decided not to include transcripts on the site. The major reason seems to be that full transcripts do not exist for most of these interviews. They also offer a "Tips for Navigating" section, which can help anyone to focus their time on the site, although the BSL's link is located prominently at the beginning of the page, making it easier to find. Both sites also ask Basques who find the site—or people who know of Basques or who may be interested in the group's history—to participate in making these oral history projects even better by being interviewed, donating images, or helping to index the recordings.

Neither site offers ways in which researchers can physically access the collection. The BMCC site advertises its hours of operation and a phone number on its main page. The BSL site provides an email link on the "List of Interviews" page so people can request more information about a specific interview(s); the BMCC includes a "Contact Us" email link with the oral history pages. It would be nice, however, if within the oral history section they gave interested individuals a protocol to follow if they want to learn more about these collections.

Having the indexes and audio excerpts available online allows researchers or interested individuals to gain a glimpse into the interview content. I sent emails to both organizations with several questions and received a response the same day from the BSL contact person. The question that I submitted for the BMCC went unanswered for several days, but I telephoned the organization and received prompt answers to my questions.

Each site offers a wealth of information about the Basque communities in each city and region. Men and women from Idaho, Oregon, and Nevada have allowed various interviewers to record them, preserving their words for future generations. Researchers can listen to stories about immigration from the Basque country, adaptation to American culture, and the determination to retain the Basque culture while residing in the United States. And that is just three key topics out of dozens that arise after reading through the on-line summary indexes. These web sites are a great starting point for those ignorant about the Basque presence in the Intermountain West region, as well as providing necessary detail for serious students to determine whether they need to travel to Boise or Reno for a comprehensive study of individual interviews.

Both web sites demonstrate how a group can use the internet to give interested individuals access to oral history information. Both web sites include audio clips, allowing people to hear the power of oral history: the person telling his or her stories in his or her own words. Overall, the strengths of these digital endeavors far outweigh any minor criticisms of the structure or function of the web pages.


Troy Reeves
Idaho Oral History Center Boise, Idaho

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