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Re: Oral history transcripts on the web



I dunno - it doesn't sound great from my perspective.  I consider our OH
transcripts to be somewhat sensitive, despite their age.  I think you have to be
careful about making them available so widely, considering what may be contained
in them.  Moreover, I suspect if any of your subjects knew that you were
planning this kind of distribution, many of them would have had second thoughts
about signing the agreement.  It also sounds a bit disingenuous (not that you
mean it this way) - it feels a little too much like you'd be stretching the
agreement beyond it's original intent, which could suggest that you were hiding
something from the subjects.

Random access to OH transcripts disturbs me a bit, though perhaps MH is a bit
paranoid.  Our agreement with Columbia U. Oral History (who did most of the
interviews for us) requires them to put the users in touch with us before they
use the collection - the company was concerned that sensitive details of our
business would be revealed in ways we didn't plan.  I admit I kind of like
having some control over the use of this resource, and it lets me keep tabs on
the use of the collection.  While the materials are old (the Columbia stuff ends
in 1973), to our corporate people it's still somewhat confidential.

Daniel

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