itg

Skype is software that lets you call telephone numbers anywhere in the world over the internet using your computer. A small fee is charged to make calls to telephones, but you can make voice or video calls to other Skype users who are online for free.

In the fall of 2006 students in Professor George Chauncey's U.S. Lesbian and Gay History class used Skype to conduct oral history interviews with Yale LGBT alumni. For their final paper, students transcribed their interviews and analyzed their subjects' experiences.

Because the alumni who participated lived all over the world, they had to be interviewed over the telephone. To facilitate recording the interviews, ITG provided the students with headsets to use with their computers and a plugin for Skype which allowed them to record the conversations as digital audio files. ITG also assisted by showing the students how to use the software and how to upload their recordings to Classes*v2. These uploaded recordings were then shared with Yale's Manuscripts and Archives department which is preserving the oral histories as a Library resource.