From:	IN%"h-business@cs.muohio.edu" 29-NOV-1994 12:41:16.71
To:	IN%"h-business@cs.muohio.edu"  "Multiple recipients of list"
CC:	
Subj:	H-BUSINESS digest 59

                      TIPS ON DOING ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS

                   (THE FOLLOWING POSTING IS TAKEN FROM H-NET)


                 UC Santa Barbara: Library, Oral History Program

         The Craft of the Oral Historian:  From Interview to Printed Page

        Oral history is as old as antiquity.  Herodotus, if you recall, set
        down many of his stories from accounts he heard on his travels.
        historians have always had recourse to interviews.  I suppose
        Hubert H. Bancroft, the California publisher and historian,
        deserves credit for taking a big step; he had his assistants
        interview a host of old-timers in the 1890s-'49ers, men who'd built
        the Central Pacific, and so on.  His interviews took shorthand and
        their transcripts were deposited in the Bancroft Library (now at
        the University of California in Berkeley); the immediate purpose
        was to provide material for Bancroft's multi volume history of
        Western America.

        Allan Nevin's contribution was the idea that such should be done
        continuously, and on the broadest possible scale, for the benefit
        of scholars generally,  He established our office in 1948.  Since
        then, the idea has been taken up by a number of institutions in
        this country and abroad.

                                   Louis M. Starr, Columbia University


        I.        The Interview Process

          Preliminary Steps

          o    Who should be interviewed?
          o    Research
          o    Contacting the narrator
          o    Initial Meeting:  explain the program to the narrator and
               conduct an overview interview
          o    Write a treatment
          o    Second Meeting:  review treatment, and set date, time and
               place for each interview
          o    Prepare a schedule of questions for first interview

          Conducting the Interview

          o    Remind the narrator of the interview appointment
          o    Practice with tape recorder
          o    Record formal introduction: cite the full name of
               subject, your name, and the location date and time of the
               interview
          o    Setting up the equipment and starting the interview
          o    Establishing rapport:  Eye contact and empathic listening
          o    Taking notes
          o    Turning the tape
          o    Closing the interview
          o    Verification: research after the interview

        II.       Transcribing

          o    Make a copy of the tape
          o    Write a tape log
          o    Methods
          o    Equipment
          o    Equipment
          o    Costs

        III.      Editing

          o    Review transcript
          o    Try to fill in missing names and dates
          o    Preserve spontaneity and integrity of tape
          o    Ask narrator to proof read first draft
          o    Correct errors

        IV.       Equipment and tapes

          o    Tape recorders
          o    Microphones
          o    Tapes
          o    Transcribing machines

        V.        Legal Considerations

          o    Copyright law
          o    Use of contracts vs. release forms
          o    Restrictive use clause

                              Tips for Interviewers

        1.   Ask questions that require more than a "yes" or "no" answer.

        2.   Ask one question at a time.

        3.   Ask brief questions.

        4.   Start with noncontroversial questions; save the delicate ones,
        if there are any, until later in the interview.

        5.   Do not let brief periods of silence fluster you.

        6.   Do not worry if your questions are not beautifully phrased as
        you would like them to be for posterity.

        7.   Do not interrupt a good story because you have thought of a
        question, or because your narrator is straying from the planned
        outline.

        8.   Try to establish at important points in the interview where
        the narrator was or what his or her role was in the event.  This
        will enable you to determine how much is eyewitness information and
        how much is based on reports of others.

        9.   Do not challenge accounts you think may be inaccurate.

        10.  Try to conduct the interview with only one narrator present.