Skip to Main Content

TheirStory

A guide to TheirStory, a proprietary end-to-end oral history platform available via application for digital humanities projects at Brown.

Home

What is TheirStory?

TheirStory is a proprietary, end-to-end platform for remote oral history interviewing. Unlike Zoom or other tools, it was created specifically for oral history. TheirStory allows you to schedule, record, and automatically transcribe oral history interviews. You can download your content off the platform and upload existing audio/video to use its features. As of 2024, TheirStory does not have video editing capabilities. 

How do I access TheirStory?

1. Review the guidelines for supported oral history projects (below).

2. Describe your project using this project proposal form.

3. The Digital Humanities Librarian will review your project proposal within 2 weeks to determine if your project is a good fit for TheirStory, or will recommend other tools and resources.

4. If approved, the DH Librarian will send a registration link for you to create an account with TheirStory using your Brown email, and create a folder or project for you (as appropriate) to use in TheirStory.  

Please note that access to TheirStory is through a unique registration link provided by the Digital Humanities Librarian, and you will not be able to access the Brown Library's subscription to TheirStory directly from the TheirStory website. 

Supported Projects for TheirStory

Oral history projects that wish to use hosted hours on the TheirStory platform will be given priority in the following order:

  1. Center for Digital Scholarship (CDS) Projects

  2. Courses in collaboration with CDS projects

  3. Other projects conducting oral histories affiliated with the Brown Library 

  4. Digital humanities course projects and digital humanities projects led by individual faculty, undergraduate or graduate students

  5. Other courses at Brown that incorporate an oral history project as part of the coursework

  6. Non-digital humanities oral history projects led by faculty, undergraduate, or graduate students in other fields

  7. (Least support) personal oral history projects

  8. (Least support) other types of video/audio interviews that do not fall under the oral history method e.g. market research interviews 

Please note that priority will be given to projects that plan to use the full features of the platform to carry out the entire oral history process from recording to transcribing.