A few of Andrew’s favorite things

With our time on the Editorial Team quickly winding down, we’re taking turns sharing some of our favorite moments from the last three years at the #OHR. Below Andrew Shaffer, our Social Media manager, shares some of his fondest memories.

The first blog post I worked on was a podcast with the always brilliant Amy Starecheski. I still remember how nervous I was to write it up and hit submit, as evidenced by the title, which I just lifted from Amy’s article. #SoOriginal. https://blog.oup.com/2014/10/power-oral-history-making-practice

I was a little more confident by the time I interviewed Linda Shopes about her #OHR article, but still worried that I was asking all the wrong questions. I still come back to her blog post frequently, as I reflect on the “urge to collect.” 

My interview with Jennifer Helgren about the role nostalgia plays in #OralHistory produced one of my favorite phrases: “oral history as a history of the present,” another one I come back to regularly. 

The most fun I ever had in an interview (and my only time on the podcast!) came when I got to talk to Elspeth Brown about the LGBTQ History Digital Collaboratory. I won’t admit how many times I re-recorded the intro before I was ok with the sound of my own voice 😬. 

In addition to the podcast, I’m proud of the efforts we made to highlight LGBTQ Oral History on the blog, including a short list of some projects documenting queer lives across the U.S. 

By partnering with others, we got even more great content, like a sneak peak at some amazing content that the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program recorded at the Equality March 2017. 

During the #OHMATakeover of 2016, the students and staff of the Oral History MA program at the Columbia Center for Oral History Research took control of the blog and published some really fantastic content. My personal favorite was Audrey Augenbraum’s piece on the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project. 

I ❤️ their work and had mentioned them on a previous post, along with mapping projects from Youth Radio and the Fiji Time film. Apparently, Maps + #OralHistory = my idea of a good time.

And last, but certainly not least, I still get chills reading our two-part conversation between Henry Greenspan and @timcole_bristol.
Part 1: https://blog.oup.com/2016/01/hank-greenspan-tim-cole-part-1/
Part 2: https://blog.oup.com/2016/02/hank-greenspan-time-cole-part-2/

I am eternally grateful to Troy Reeves for taking a chance on me after I showed up hours late to my first interview, to Kathy Nasstrom for constant encouragement, to Caitlin Tyler-Richards for teaching me how to twitter, and to all the people I’ve been lucky enough to meet in this gig.