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Oral histories are among the most significant and most sensitive items in the Dzaleka archive. They carry the voices of community members directly — their words, their experiences, their memory of events. That directness demands more care than most other record types. This page covers the specific practices that apply to oral history records, whether the item is an audio recording or a transcription.

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Why oral histories require special care

Unlike a photograph or a document, an oral history record contains a living person’s account of personal experience. The narrator has given something of themselves. Several things follow from that:
  • The narrator’s consent must be obtained before the record is archived, and the scope of that consent must be respected in the access level you set.
  • The narrator is a creator, not a subject. Their name and role must appear in the creator array.
  • The language the narrator spoke in must be recorded — it is part of the record’s authenticity.
  • The context of the interview — who was present, when it happened, what the narrator chose to share — belongs in the description.

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Oral history documentation workflow

1

Obtain and record consent

Before the interview, discuss with the narrator how the recording will be used, who will have access to it, and under what conditions. Agree on an access level (public, restricted, or community-only) and document the consent.
Do not create a DMS record for an oral history until consent has been obtained. If the narrator’s wishes are unclear, default to restricted access until clarified.
2

Conduct the interview and note the context

Record who conducted the interview, where it took place, and the date. Note whether it was conducted in the narrator’s first language or a second language. These details go into the description and the creator array.
3

Initialize the record

Run dms init to create a new record with a UUID. Set type to story for oral history narratives, or audio if the primary item is the recording itself.
dms init --type story
4

List both participants as creators

The narrator and the interviewer are both creators. List them with accurate roles:
"creator": [
  {
    "name": "Marie Consolée",
    "role": "narrator"
  },
  {
    "name": "Jean-Baptiste Mushimiyimana",
    "role": "interviewer",
    "affiliation": "Dzaleka Digital Heritage Project"
  }
]
5

Set the language field

Set language to the language spoken in the interview — not the language of any translation or transcription. Use IETF BCP 47 codes.
CodeLanguage
enEnglish
swSwahili
frFrench
rwKinyarwanda
kiKirundi
lnLingala
soSomali
nyChichewa
If the interview was conducted in two languages, record the primary language.
6

Set the format field

The format field specifies the MIME type of the digital object being described.
Itemformat value
Transcription (plain text)text/plain
Transcription (PDF)application/pdf
Audio recording (MP3)audio/mpeg
Audio recording (WAV)audio/wav
Audio recording (OGG)audio/ogg
If both a transcription and an audio recording exist as separate items, create two records and link them using the relation field.
7

Write a contextual description

The description should preserve the interview context. Include:
  • What the narrator chose to share
  • The circumstances or occasion of the interview
  • Themes the account addresses
  • The original event date and location, if known
Aim for 2–5 sentences. See the example below for a model description.
8

Set access level as agreed with the narrator

Use the access level the narrator consented to. Do not upgrade access later without re-obtaining consent.
"rights": {
  "license": "CC-BY-NC-4.0",
  "access_level": "public",
  "holder": "Marie Consolée"
}
9

Validate the record

Run schema validation before submitting:
dms validate your-record.json

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Example: a well-documented oral history record

The following is the complete story.json example from the DMS repository. It demonstrates every field described above. 
{
  "id": "b3e7c8a1-4d5f-6e7a-8b9c-0d1e2f3a4b5c",
  "title": "Journey to Dzaleka: A Story of Hope",
  "type": "story",
  "description": "An oral history account of a Congolese family's journey from Bukavu to Dzaleka Refugee Camp in 2015. The narrator describes the challenges of displacement, the experience of crossing borders, and the sense of community found upon arrival at Dzaleka. This story captures themes of resilience, loss, and rebuilding life in a new place.",
  "language": "en",
  "creator": [
    {
      "name": "Marie Consolée",
      "role": "narrator"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jean-Baptiste Mushimiyimana",
      "role": "interviewer",
      "affiliation": "Dzaleka Digital Heritage Project"
    }
  ],
  "date": {
    "created": "2024-03-15",
    "event_date": "2015-08-22"
  },
  "subject": [
    "oral history",
    "displacement",
    "Congo",
    "journey",
    "resilience",
    "community",
    "arrival"
  ],
  "location": {
    "name": "Dzaleka Refugee Camp",
    "area": "Community Center",
    "latitude": -13.7833,
    "longitude": 33.9833
  },
  "format": "text/plain",
  "rights": {
    "license": "CC-BY-NC-4.0",
    "access_level": "public",
    "holder": "Marie Consolée"
  },
  "source": {
    "contributor": "Dzaleka Digital Heritage Project",
    "collection": "Oral Histories 2024",
    "original_format": "audio interview (transcribed)"
  },
  "coverage": {
    "start_date": "2015-01-01",
    "end_date": "2015-12-31",
    "period": "2015 displacement and arrival"
  },
  "schema_version": "1.0.0"
}

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What this record does well

Marie Consolée is listed with role: narrator — not as a subject, not as a contributor, but as a creator. Jean-Baptiste Mushimiyimana is listed as interviewer with his institutional affiliation. The rights.holder is set to the narrator, because the account is hers.
The description names the narrator’s origin (Bukavu), the destination (Dzaleka), the year (2015), and the themes (resilience, loss, rebuilding). Someone encountering this record with no prior knowledge of Dzaleka can understand what it contains and why it matters.
date.created (2024-03-15) is when the metadata record was written. date.event_date (2015-08-22) is when the original journey took place. These are separate fields for a reason — the archive date and the historical date must not be conflated.
The source object records that this was originally an audio interview that was later transcribed, contributed by the Dzaleka Digital Heritage Project, and filed in the Oral Histories 2024 collection. This provenance chain is essential for future researchers.
The coverage object gives the temporal scope of the content itself — the year 2015 — separate from the date the record was created. The human-readable period field (2015 displacement and arrival) aids browsing and search.