General Information

Oral History Program

Contact Information

Ali F. Igmen, Ph.D., Program Director
Email: Ali.Igmen@csulb.edu
Office: FO2-116
Phone: (562) 985-8765

General Information

The Oral History Program at CSULB is an instructional program within the History Department. Students can take oral history classes in conjunction with other courses or can pursue research, including thesis research, using oral history.

The Oral History Program also serves as a resource for faculty, students and local community groups, including K-12 schools, to help them promote and use oral history in both teaching and research. An instructional video, Adventures in Oral History: Oral History in the K-12 Classroom, made in cooperation with the Long Beach Unified School District, is available for a small shipping and handling fee.

Oral History is not a degree granting program. However, students can incorporate oral history into their programs and earn either a Bachelor or Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies. And unlike many oral history programs, the CSULB program is not primarily a collection program that initiates oral history projects. Nevertheless, we have been able to establish and expand significant holdings in oral history by archiving the work of a host of students and faculty. Because of the strength of some of our collections, several outsiders have deposited their work in the Oral History Archive. Although these materials are currently available only in the CSULB Library, large portions of the collections will be made available in our Virtual Oral/Aural History Archive.