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Re: integrity of oral history (long)



Jason:  My experience with oral histories has been with the federal government so the circumstances are quite different from yours at the hospital.  (We have interviewees sign a Memorandum of Understanding, stating that the tapes and transcripts are official government records and that the interviewee gives up all copyrights, incidents of ownership, etc.)  When we have used outside transcribers, the contract has required that they send the tapes and raw transcripts to us.  We review them first and only then do we forward copies to the interviewee for review.

I don't know what kind of contractual arrangement the hospital has with the external interviewers.  But if you are paying for this product, is it possible for you to obtain the recordings and transcripts directly from the group that is conducting the interviews?  (I am not up on all the laws that apply in the private sector but it does sound as if you are contracting out the interviewing.  So you should have some rights to the original product.)  Then you, rather than they, could send the tapes and transcripts on the to interviewee for review, enabling you to work out any disagreements over editing, etc.  Of course, it helps to work out the goals and guidelines before the interview - although some interviewees are comfortable going fully "on the record," sometimes you have to trade candor against temporary limitations on access.  (In other words, permit some restriction of the final product for a limited period of time in order to get a more candid interview with useful info!
rmation.)  If you are paying for this product, you also should have input into the type and content of questions asked, etc.

There is some good advice about oral histories and archives at http://207.21.198.172/saagroups/bas/newsletter_1987.asp so you might want to check that out.  For example, one of the articles said:
"Having said that I edit transcripts when it is necessary to do so, I should go on to say that it must be done very carefully. You don’t want to lose the unique characteristics of the interviewee’s speech and personality. You can prune excess verbiage and rearrange phrases so that the order is suitable to written English, but do retain repetition or unusual syntax for emphasis, clarity and insight. If sentence fragments and punctuation present problems, as they do in some transcriptions, you may find an acceptable model in printed dialogue or good journal interviews. Literary elegance is not a legitimate reason to edit business oral history transcripts. Clarity is. Edit as much as necessary, but as little as possible. The tape, after all, is the primary record. And that remains unchanged."  (see http://207.21.198.172/saagroups/bas/newsletter_1987.asp#ORALH1 )
Good luck!
Maarja Krusten
Maarja@aol.com


In a message dated Tue, 23 Apr 2002 �3:40:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Jason T. Larson" <jason.larson@TCH.HARVARD.EDU> writes:

>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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