At Duke University, history professor Ed Balleisen, who is director of the
"Rethinking Regulation" program there, is leading a project to create an online gateway to regulatory oral histories—oral histories with regulators, the regulated, or political actors who were instrumental in creating or changing regulatory agencies or frameworks. As part of the project, work is underway to catalog and tag the most relevant oral histories to make them more accessible. Understanding what interviews have been conducted also will highlight the work that remains to be done. The project organizers have put out a request for information:
We have identified several caches, such as those at the SEC Historical Society and the Columbia Center for Oral History (for example, its FCC project),
but we hope to draw on the knowledge of . . . readers to target individual interviews or other rich collections of oral histories regarding regulatory agencies, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere, at any level of government. While we're especially interested in creating an extant database of digitally accessible oral histories, do also let us know if you're aware of relevant oral histories that remain in analog without a digital transcript.
Please e-mail any tips, leads, or general thoughts on the project to
william.goldsmith@duke.edu.
