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integrity of oral history



Colleagues,

We have been conducting an extensive Oral History project for the
Hospital. The project is being done through an external group, and so we
don't have very much control over the nature of the questions, the
audiotape, or the written transcript until they come to us as ostensibly
complete.

Recently, we received the latest addition to this project, but we have
since learned that the interviewee was not satisfied with what he had
said in the recorded interview, and consequently re-edited and re-wrote
the entire interview. The archives does not yet have a copy of the
audiotape, but we do have the transcript.

My questions are thus: Who "owns" the interview before it is deposited
in the archives and made available, the interviewer or the interviewee?
Or does the Archives own it from the start, since we are paying for this
service? Is this audiotape even still valid? My gut feeling is that if
we had possession of the tape in its original form, the actual
transcript in its edited form becomes secondary (as we could easily see
a lot of Freudian slips and other psychological changes that could be
very revealing). Perhaps we should send a hospital representative with
the interviewer in the future?

There are a number of issues here, obviously; any feedback, ideas, etc.,
that you all have would be most welcome.

Cheers,

Jason

--
Jason T. Larson
Hospital Archivist
Children's Hospital
Main SB 0004.1
300 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA 02115-5724
---------------------------------
(617) 355-5286 Tel
(617) 734-7763 Fax
jason.larson@tch.harvard.edu

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