Resource Library
A curated selection of resources for family historians, community archivists, documentarians, memoir writers and more.
How to use:
Click on a category to see all resources related to the category; or
Search by keyword; or
Check out Featured Resources; or
Browse all sources below.
Categories
Thickening the Narrative: Resources to learn, deepen, and teach untold stories, from nonwhite narrative histories, to trauma-informed research and more.
Documentary Practices: Examples of documentary writing (including memoir, personal essay, journalism) fictions based on truth (historical, autofiction), photography and film, as well as tips and prompts.
Archives: Examples of public archives of specific communities and resources for archiving your own collections.
Classes: These resources offer classes to enhance your archiving and documentary practice skills. For workshops with Amanda, please check out the Workshops page.
Oral History: Resources to help you strengthen your skills and practices in oral history collection, as well as examples for how to present your interviews.
Featured Resources:
Joyful Recollections of Trauma
Though any memoir could be considered documentary practice, this particular one was inspired by Scheer diving into his own archives (or collections). It's also hilarious and heartbreaking.
Considering the Space-History of your Archive
A list of inspirations that consider space and land as a crucial part of the history and story that we tell.
An Ethical Community-Embedded Artistic Practice
This article, Toolkit for Community-Embedded Artistic Practice by Lane Michael Stanley, offers a toolkit of questions to consider for those who seek to have a community-embedded artistic practice, based on his own experience in recovery housing and his time developing plays with unhoused people.
Writing Alone and with Others
This book has a wealth of memoir writing exercises that can easily be adapted to writing about family and community histories. If your family/community responds better to writing prompts than an oral history interview, this book is an excellent resource to jog memories.
Pictures from Home, Larry Sultan
First published in 1992 to wide critical acclaim, Pictures From Home is Larry Sultan’s pendant to his parents. We often think about archives as something that gets saved, memorialized, put away to be discovered for other generations.
Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University
Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) is dedicated to documentary expression and its role in creating a more just society. CDS teaches, produces and presents the documentary arts across a full range of media — photography, audio, film, writing, experimental and emerging media.
Lives Well Lived
This is a lovely documentary by Sky Bergman, featuring active elderly adults with incredible stories.