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Re: Indexing videotapes



When I took oral history classes and also cataloged oral history, I didn't
use program.   Rather I used a word processing program and created
a topical list; for example:

Narrator:       John Q. Adams
Interviewer:    Aaron Burr
Date:           October 7, 1778
Place:          Adams Home, 1212 Continental Lane, Boston, Massachussetts
Time:           45 minutes

Minutes

1 - 5           Identification of tape, narrator, interviewer, date, place.

6 - 10          Narrator tells of childhood, growing up in Lancashire,
                schooling at Eton, father (James Rushmore) and his
                work as blacksmith in Devonshire.

Anyway, the above is all fictitious but you get the idea.   Once you
have that .. you can use any database, cataloging software, etc.
You need to be careful of anything mentioned (names, subjects,
places, etc.)    Hopefully you have some basic information with
you.   I had a bunch of pre-Civil War letters here that all said
"West Point" ... and as I read them, they didn't sound like New
York but I had no other indication.   It wasn't til a few years later
that I was traveling I-65 through Alabama, that I saw a sign for
West Point (Alabama).  So when I returned, I was able to re-
catalog those letters and verify that they were from Alabama.

Same thing holds for oral history.   If a person on the tape
says, I was born at West Point....and doesn't give a state and
the narrator didn't ask ... you need to try to verify some of those.

Dean

Dean DeBolt
University Librarian
Special Collections and West Florida Archives
John C. Pace Library
University of West Florida
11000 University Parkway
Pensacola, FL  32514-5750
Tele:  850-474-2213;   Fax:  850-474-3338

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