University of Nevada Oral History Program
The University of Nevada Oral History Program (UNOHP) is principally a research and publication operation. Its mission is to produce primary-source oral histories that have enduring value, to scholars and the reading public alike, as documentation of the history and culture of Nevada and the West. The UNOHP's oral histories arise from carefully prepared, systematic interviews of persons who can provide firsthand description and interpretation of historically significant events, people, and places. Subjects explored to date include mining and ranching, the emergence and development of the casino gaming industry, politics and government, Great Basin Indians, the experiences of various ethnic groups in the settlement and development of the West, and a number of others.
    Oral history tapes and master transcripts totaling over 120,000 pages are housed in the UNOHP archives. Complete, bound sets of the works are held by the Special Collections departments of the University of Nevada libraries in Reno and Las Vegas. The university library in Reno also circulates copies of many of the oral histories, and CDs containing the transcripts of all oral histories published between 1965 and 2003 have been distributed to all public libraries and public school libraries in Nevada. Hard copies of select portions of the collection have been purchased by universities, community colleges, libraries, historical societies, newspapers, and public schools throughout the West, and parts of the work have been added to the collections of the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, and other libraries throughout the United States.
    An important adjunct to the program's oral history mission is the collateral acquisition of historical manuscripts and photographs for Nevada's university libraries. The program also produces video documentaries and holds in its collection over 150 hours of archival videotape on historical and anthropological themes. Several of its documentaries have won awards at international film festivals and two have been selected for screening at the American Anthropological Association's annual Ethnographic Film Festival.
    The UNOHP also publishes narrative interpretations of selected oral histories. These books reach a much wider audience than the tape recordings and their verbatim transcripts, which are of value primarily to students and publishing scholars. In addition to numerous laudatory reviews in scholarly and popular journals, the quality of the UNOHP's work has earned it awards from the American Association for State and Local History, the Southwest Oral History Association, the national Oral History Association, and a number of international film and video festivals.