Occidental College
Library
OxyCorps
Isabel Osgood-Roach (Class of 2013) interviews Lande Ajose (Class of 1987) as Ryan Rambach (Class of 2014) operates camera.
OxyCorps Student/Alumni Interviews
Four interns comprise the central engine of "OxyCorps" with the guidance of their mentor, Dale Ann Stieber, Special Collections Librarian: Sara Mooney, Isabel Osgood-Roach, and Taylor Rowland of the Class of 2013, and Ryan Rambach, Class of 2014 identified potential interviewees, scheduled and conducted 58 interviews in less than 20 days, with most interviews recorded during the 2012 All-Class Alumni Reunion. The Alumni Reunion "Behind the Scenes" and our Flickr Roster of Interviews document the days of recording. Most interviews were 40 to 50 minutes in length for a total of 50 hours of oral history. In four weeks, the students, supported by Special Collections staff, organized, transcribed and cataloged the interviews, produced video viewing copies, preserved original digital files, and laid the foundation for a searchable video archive.
To illustrate the breadth of the alumni stories, OxyCorps designed "Alumni Stories of Student Life," an interactive Website with a selection of video clips and links to transcripts that highlight such topics as political climate, academics, and campus life. The website also served as a proof of concept for a potential website where alumni stories could be shared.
The fifty-eight alumni interviews are described in The Collection exhibit produced by Anne Mar, Assistant College Archivist; catalog records for the individual interviews are available in the Library catalog.
Videos and transcripts of the interviews are located in the Special Collections department on the third floor of the library. Faculty, students, alumni and other researchers may view the individual interviews in Special Collections To access them, please contact us.
OxyCorps was made possible through the support of gifts to the Occidental College Library through the Annual Fund, 125th Anniversary Funds from the President's Office and The Paul K. & Evalyn E. Cook Richter Trusts in the 2012 Occidental Summer Research Program. In addition to the four interns and mentor Dale Stieber, Special Collections student assistants Justin Berner and Benjamin Tuthill of the Class of 2013 and Assistant College Archivist, Anne Mar, were instrumental in operations, logistics and transcription creation.
