Hi Paul,

Just to clarify what you mean by "automated"--are you looking for a process that completely removes the need for an interviewer, and only involves people recording their answers to a questionnaire alone with a machine? 

The seems to be the model the "Outhouse" project was experimenting with. Even then, this article says that in one of the Outhouse initiatives, "around half" of the participants preferred to do face-to-face interviews rather than be recorded alone in a booth: http://camra.culturemap.org.au/central-darling/outhouse-research

I think it's a good idea to digitally capture more first-person stories, but I have trouble thinking of them as "oral histories" without a human interviewer.

If you're interested, here are a couple more projects that are looking at how to increase the number of digital oral histories that are captured, preserved, and usefully made accessible.

Colorado Voice Preserve (they are currently looking at the infrastructure needed for a statewide oral history initiative, including technical requirements): http://www.voicepreserve.org

IMLS "Oral History in the Digital Age" site:
http://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/

Best,

Robin Dean
Director, Alliance Digital Repository
Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries
http://adrresources.coalliance.org/