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Re: Oral History transcription question



I'll chime in with evidence of the time-consuming, labor-intensive nature of
transcription. A while back I was transcribing a videotape of a talk given
by Norman Mailer, and I calculated that every 5 minutes of talking took an
hour or more to transcribe -- and that didn't include typing, editing etc.
And he HAD to have friends with names like Vance Bourjaily and Jean
Malaquais!

I also found that videotapes are particularly difficult to transcribe,
because the tape speed and other factors permit less control over pause,
rewind etc.


Thomas J. Wood
Archivist
Archives/Special Collections LIB 144
University of Illinois at Springfield
P.O. Box 19243
Springfield IL 62794-9243
217-206-6520 | wood@uis.edu | http://www.uis.edu/library/lib-arch


-----Original Message-----
From: Carole Prietto [mailto:Carole-Prietto@LIBRARY.WUSTL.EDU]
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 1:19 PM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: Re: Oral History transcription question


Amen to what Carole Nowicke said about oral history transcription being
time-consuming and difficult. A couple of years ago I had to transcribe a
lecture that a well-known WU alumnus gave on our campus. In this case,
"transcribe" encompassed:

1. several complete run throughs of the lecture tape, stopping constantly
because I couldn't type as fast as the speaker talked.

2. verifying correct spellings of names

3. noting, by way of footnotes, the identity of people mentioned in the
lecture. i.e. the speaker would say "Mr. Carson" and I would have a
footnote there saying "W.G.B. Carson, Assistant Professor of English".

4.  no index, no abstract, no vita.

A 45-minute talk took nearly a week to transcribe.


Carole Prietto, University Archivist     phone:  (314) 935-9730
Washington University in St. Louis       fax:  (314) 935-8320
Box 1061, One Brookings Drive            prietto@library.wustl.edu
St. Louis, Missouri 63130

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