Access To Collections
Explore the Story Map on our homepage for oral history exerpts, abstracts and a subset of accompanying photographs.
Public access to the complete collections is available by appointment at 1) our location in Berkeley, California, 2) Ashoka University (for academic research only), 3) Guru Nanak Dev University (for academic research only), 4) Delhi University and 5) any of our open house events. Use this form to make an appointment for onsite access.
Furthermore, a subset of oral history interviews are currently freely accessible via the Stanford University Libraries' Digital Repository via online streaming. Pending funding required for the accession, more interviews will be freely available via online streaming at the Stanford Digital Repository over the coming years.
Archive access via online paid streaming is presently limited however to academic researchers, museum and collections currators, authors, filmmakers and other educational media makers. Aspiring researchers may fill out this form to request online streaming access.
Family members of interviewees may request a digital file copy of their oral history interviews via this online form (with the interviewees' permission).
Thank you for your patience as we work through the logistics of dissemination around this significant and delicate collection.
A Frequently asked question about access:
Q: Why aren't all the oral histories online, easily accessible for streaming?
A: Creating responsible online access for each oral history interview is an expensive task. Each interview file arrives at The 1947 Partition Archive as pieces of raw video. These need to be stitched together, color corrected, reviewed and rendered, which, for two hours of video on average per interview can take a couple of days, and computer as well as human resources. Prior to public release the stories need thorough review and metatagging as well. As you can imagine, this is a labor intensive task and hence expensive. We are choosing to focus our very limited resources on reaching as many elders as possible to document their oral history interviews. We will have all the time to process the raw videos and place them online after we complete the task of documenting everyone's oral history interviews.