The Institute for Advanced Study's Oral History Project was established in 1988 in order to, in the words of interviewer Patricia H. Labalme, "obtain as full an oral record as possible of memories of the early years of the Institute and its most significant participants." Labalme served as Associate Director of the Institute from 1982 to 1988, Secretary of the Corporation from 1982 to 1992, and Assistant to Institute Director Phillip Griffiths from 1992 to 1997. She began the project in 1988 in response to a suggestion by then-Director Marvin Goldberger that she write a history of the Institute. She thought it best to begin by interviewing various people associated with the early history of the Institute, especially since at the time many of the early Faculty had either died or were quite elderly. Labalme conducted interviews with 14 Faculty members, Faculty spouses, past Director Harry Woolf, and others associated with the history of the Institute, with a particular focus on the School of Historical Studies.
Betsy Devine, the wife of Frank Wilczek, who was a Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the time, was also interested in compiling a record of the early history of the Institute in the late 1980s. She focused her attention on the early history of the School of Mathematics, and interviewed 10 Faculty members and others associated with the School's history.
Elliott Shore, then Librarian of the Historical Studies-Social Science Library, conducted interviews with Faculty, former Members, and past Director Carl Kaysen, between 1993 and 1996 for a history of the School of Social Science to be written in conjunction with the School's 25th Anniversary.
Institute Associate Director for Development and Public Affairs Rachel Gray conducted an interview with Armand Borel in 2001.
Sheldon Hochheiser, an outside oral historian, conducted interviews with Freeman Dyson and Robert Langlands in 2007 and 2008.
The Institute received an endowment for its Archives from the Leon Levy Foundation in 2009. This funding included support for expanding the Oral History Project. Linda Arntzenius, an independent scholar and former Publications Officer of the Institute, began in 2009 to conduct interviews with Faculty, Faculty spouses, Trustees, former staff, and others associated with the history of the Institute.
