Amplified Oklahoma (review)

The Oklahoma State University (OSU) Library launched the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program (OOHRP) in 2007 to "record the history of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University." In 2016, OOHRP began producing its first podcast, Amplified Oklahoma, to share material from its oral history collection with people beyond the walls of the OSU Library. In each podcast episode, Amplified Oklahoma's team uses excerpts from collected interviews to tell a story about a piece of Oklahoma's past. OOHRP has produced almost forty of these episodes since 2016, sharing stories on such topics as farming, weather, military service, gender, sexuality, and love. OOHRP faculty member Juliana Nykolaiszyn hosted and co-hosted the first episodes and was then succeeded by a series of OSU students (and one alumna). The host plays a key role in each episode. Their commentary connects the thematic dots between the selected excerpts and grounds each story in relevant historical and present-day context.

Amplified Oklahoma is a strong production, and OOHRP's commitment to making its collections accessible is one of its greatest strengths. OOHRP uses the podcast to share selections from its oral history collections, "amplifying" the potential reach of these materials by making them more accessible to public audiences. OOHRP's commitment to outreach and education is also exemplified by the supplemental resources it provides for listeners who want to learn more about the topics covered in the podcast. In the podcast show notes for each episode, available on the OSU Library website, OOHRP provides links to full recordings and transcripts for anyone who wants to access the full interviews used in each episode. In some cases, OOHRP also includes links to relevant external media, OSU webpages, or more information about the many OOHRP oral history projects held in the OSU Library—providing additional learning opportunities for interested listeners. The OOHRP show notes for Episode 25: "Glass House Restaurant," for example, includes links to a local museum and related video interviews on YouTube.

OOHRP's approach to Amplified Oklahoma also demonstrates one of the ways podcasting can use oral history to enrich understandings of historical knowledge. By using oral history in this way—piecing excerpts together to tell new stories on its podcast platform—OOHRP adds new meaning and nuance to the interviews they choose to feature in each episode. For example, in Episode 2: "Love," host Nykolaiszyn selected excerpts from an interview with journalist Vance Trimble in which he talks about his relationship with his wife, Elzene. Trimble's love for his wife takes center stage in this episode—much more so than in his original interview, available digitally in full in the OSU Library's digital collections. Most of Trimble's full interview focuses on his career in journalism, and his professional history overshadows the role love played in his life. By pulling out excerpts focused on love from an interview otherwise centered around work, Amplified Oklahoma considers Trimble's life through a different lens, adding new dimension and richness to his original testimony.

In most Amplified Oklahoma episodes, the hosts consider their subject matter through a fair and critical lens. In Episode 31: "Women in the Military," for example, featuring excerpts from an oral history interview with Major General LaRita Aragon, the host bracketed some of Aragon's testimony with context provided by OSU military historian Jennifer Murray. Murray's commentary does two important things. First, she places Aragon's comments within the broader history of women's experiences in the military, adding new complexity and understanding to that historical subject. Second, knowing more about women's military history helps listeners understand the significance of Aragon's experiences, much more so than if they listened to the interview on its own. Most episodes, like this one, feature effective context and commentary, though there are a few for which this is not the case. For example, in Episode 19: "Chilocco Military Veterans," the oral history excerpts function without contextual explanation more than the excerpts featured in most other episodes...