Oral History's Design:

A creative collaboration. Sustaining visitor (re)use of oral histories on heritage sites: The National Trust's Seaton Delaval Hall Case Study.

Oral history's 'deep dark secret' is that its use as an active collection tool outstrips its use and reuse in historical interpretation. The project draws on new developments in oral history reuse theory and practice in combination with design science to explore how heritage site visitors could become active curators and historians in reusing an existing oral history on-site archive and how in turn new data could be generated to shape future collecting.

The PhD would generate, in partnership, new knowledge in understanding and addressing visitors' active engagement in interpreting the past through reusing a National Trust oral history archive.