Kako metodu usmene povijesti / oral history uklopiti u muzejsku izložbu?
How Can Oral History be Integrated into a Museum Exhibition?

Summary/Abstract: In the article, I deal with the use of the oral history method in museums. This museum method was the theme of the annual conference of ICOM/ICME, held in Nafplion in Greece in 2005. Oral history, that is, the oral method of data collection, is one of the methods that ethnologists/anthropologists use in field work and, thus, museum staff also. Data collected in this way and used, for example, in exhibitions in an unaltered form (or, at least, altered to the smallest extent possible), enables the collocutors themselves to speak out, rather than having their words interpreted by experts, researchers or museum staff, as is most frequently the case. The new technologies make it possible for data collected by the oral history method to be presented in various ways (films on video-tapes or DVD formats, recorded sounds or statements, transcribed tests on show at the exhibition), which offer a host of opportunities for utilization of the method in museums. During realization of the textile handicrafts in Istria research project, we used that method and applied it to a certain extent at the Weavers in Istria exhibition, which was the outcome of the project. Part of the article deals with the examples and experiences of the Ethnographic Museum of Istria on that very project. Collected material that was not used in the exhibition remains at our disposal for future Ethnographic Museum of Istria projects, while attention is simultaneously drawn in this article to the need for establishment of an archive of information collected by the oral history method.

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