Individuals and groups wanting to preserve veterans history are invited to participate in a new oral history project being organized by the Pacific Regional Humanities Center at UC Davis.

"We're interested in the stories by veterans of overseas wars," says center director Georges van den Abbeele. "A number of generations are passing on and we need to preserve their stories while we can, while the stories of more recent veteran generations also remain to be documented and made better known."

This month, the center officially joined the Library of Congress' American Folklife Center as a regional partner for the Veterans History Project. Its role will be to collect and archive video and audio tapes and create hard-copy transcripts, all accessible to the public.

While UC Davis students will conduct much of the work, historical societies, veterans' groups, community organizations and individuals from throughout the Pacific region are encouraged to conduct their own interviews and submit them to the center.

Because the Library of Congress believes the history of minority vets is underrepresented, UC Davis is particularly seeking stories from Asian Americans, Native Americans, Latinos and African Americans.

In December 2001, the National Endowment for the Humanities announced it would give UC Davis $379,000 in matching money annually for three years to operate one of nine regional humanities centers. The UC Davis center represents California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas Islands.

Guidelines are being developed on how to conduct oral histories and will be posted on the center's Web page at http://prhc.ucdavis.edu/. To learn more about participating in the project, contact Jan Goggans at (530) 754-6491 or phrc@ucdavis.edu.