Veterans History Project - Workshop Support

Congress mandated the Veterans History Project (VHP) to grow the oral history collections of United States veterans at the Library of Congress. VHP accomplishes this mandate by encouraging the public to interview and gather first-person narratives of US veterans in their lives and communities and donate products of those interviews (e.g., recordings, compilations of original photographs, and manuscript materials) to the Library of Congress.

Once VHP receives these donations, they are processed, digitized and made available for: researchers, families tracing their genealogy, filmmakers, documentarians, educators, students, Members of Congress or anyone else interested in researching a particular veteran, unit or military related topic.

The Library of Congress (LOC) requires localized, site-specific training for volunteers seeking to create donated collections that meet the scope, standards and criteria of the American Folklife Center’s Veterans History Project (VHP). Congress mandated VHP to grow the oral history collections of US veterans.

VHP accomplishes this mandate by encouraging the public to interview and gather first-person narratives of the US veterans in their lives and communities and donate products of those interviews (e.g., recordings, compilations of original photographs, and manuscript materials) to the Library of Congress.

The workshops will delve into the best practices of interviewing informed by the academic fields of Oral History and Folklore to provide the range and depth of instruction to as wide a field of the general public as possible and ensure these important voices and perspectives of US veterans from WWI to the current conflicts are preserved. VHP has an average of twenty training workshops per year to meet this mission requirement.

The volunteer organization workshops will ensure that volunteers have mastered the practices and technical standards for creating an oral history. VHP and its contractors conduct an average of twenty training workshops per year to meet this mission requirement. Workshops are initiated at the request of members of Congress. VHP is a grassroots effort and relies on the voluntary participation of people to help gather and donate the first- person narratives of US veterans around the country.

In order for these oral histories to be utilized by researchers, authors, film makers, etc., interviewers must uphold certain practices and technical standards that are germane to the scholarship for history and related disciplines. Questions are due no later than 03/18/2024 at 12:00 PM EST. Responses to questions will be posted to SAM as an amendment to the solicitation. Proposals are due no later than 03/28/2024 at 5:00 PM EST.

Amendment 0001 updates LC52.216-3 to allow for multiple awards, adds FAR 52.216-27 to Section I, and updates Section M to allow for multiple awards. All other terms and conditions remain the same.

Amendment 0002 clarifies that the 10 page limit for the Technical Approach does not include resumes.