When: Thursday, October 29, 2009
Where: Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives
1201 17th Street, NW, Washington, DC
(Between Dupont Circle & Farragut North Metro Stations)

9:00 am - 9:30 am Registration and coffee

9:30 am - 9:45 am Welcome and opening remarks

9:45 am - 12:30 am Morning session – An Introduction to Oral History with Sarah Rouse

This workshop will cover the basics of oral history, offering step-by-step instruction. Topics will include planning and coordinating a project, developing questions, how to conduct an interview, effective interview strategies and techniques, equipment needs, legal and ethical concerns, editing transcripts, and arranging and storing the audio files and transcripts. The format will be interactive and will include discussions about oral history methodology.

12:30 pm – 1:30 pm Lunch on your own

1: 30 pm – 3:30 pm Afternoon session -- Grant Writing Workshop with Melissa Jordan

Writing a successful grant proposal isn't as simple as sitting down and turning out text. It requires research, teamwork, a good editor, and a lot of patience! This workshop will guide you through the basics of identifying and securing grant funding, including a review of resources, the elements of proposal preparation, and pointers on good grants management. Resource lists, checklists, and helpful templates will be provided, with ample time for Q&A.

Instructors Sarah Rouse – was Senior Program Officer in the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress from 2001 to 2008, developing the project's scope, collection policies and best practices. She has conducted dozens of audio and video oral history interviews with American war veterans and taught groups of volunteers in oral history basics. She has transcribed oral histories for the Capitol Hill (DC) History Project, and presented programs on oral history at museums and historical societies, and conferences of archivists. Her library background and experience cataloging historical film and photos, including a 1996 Fulbright Scholarship, naturally led to her work recording and making accessible oral histories. She is OHMAR's Recording Secretary and a consultant in archives special collections.

Melissa Jordan – has more than fifteen years' experience writing, managing, and evaluating grants for non-profits and U.S. government agencies. Over the past decade, Melissa has taught dozens of seminars to grant seekers, both in the U.S. and abroad, using her own experience—the good, the bad, and the ugly—as teaching examples. Melissa is a Russian historian by education, with degrees in Russian Area Studies, Russian Language and Literature, and Political Science from Macalester College. She now facilitates writing and administering grants for the National Geographic Society. She is also a writer and contributor for WAMU, NPR's Washington DC station.