Voices in the University- An Oral History Project @ YSJ

Hello and welcome to my little personal introduction and reflection on the York St John oral history and the community project! I am Harriet Bartle, a first year History and English Literature student here at YSJ. I am a part of a five- strong team, constructed of two staff co- directors (Elodie Duche and Graeme Callister) and three undergraduate researchers (Jess Dale, Matt Cotton and myself), all of whom you can find out a little more about on our page here.
There are some fantastic *ahem* pictures of us all on there so you can see what we look like, too. Whilst you’re there, please have a look around and share the page with people who you think might enjoy seeing it!

So, to outline our project and change any thoughts that we’re just being nosey about the escapades of past students (though I’m sure one or two will crop up!), we are hoping to carry out a number of interviews in order to establish how it is that community has become entwined and related to the University, as well as the institutions that went before it.
In order to do this, we are interviewing a combination of internal staff ranging from the grounds- keeping teams to lecturers (basically anyone willing to talk to us) before we then move onto interviewing people outside of the institution, so that we can develop a small but rounded picture of how the community and YSJ are connected. We want any kind of anecdote – good, bad or otherwise – we just want to hear about it. You can even tell us about it in our story zone. When we’re done, our research will be compiled into an entry into the Yorkshire Film Archive and perhaps, a booklet too. We will be recording our interviews on some of the technology kindly shown to us by the ILS.
Here I feel I need to add that I personally find iPads to be the absolute pinnacle of elusive techno- understanding and (probable) alchemy, but that’s one reason why this project is so exciting; I might learn that computers and the like don’t actually hate me as much as I think they do.

Joking aside, I think that leads quite nicely onto what it is I am looking forwards to about this project; I have to start with the actual process of conducting interviews with the use of ethically sound . I think that prompting people to share memories is a fascinating insight into how individual experience will coincide with the overview we will eventually achieve. There is endless potential to this and I cannot wait to see where it goes.
Secondly, I would have to list working on this project simultaneously as YSJ reaches 175 years old through its various forms. What better way to celebrate our history than asking people about their experience of it? We may struggle to reach back the full 175 years, but who knows what we’ll find out?
Finally, I am really looking forwards to being a strong part of this team as it presents an opportunity unlike any other I have ever had and with it, I hope to develop my personal skills as well as my teamwork abilities.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you’ll check us out!
Harriet Bartle

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