FELLOWS ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
2008

Greetings Fellows:

I am attaching a rather lengthy document that requires your attention. You will see that, based on my experience at an ALA workshop, looking at the MLA oral history web site, and the Library of Congress veterans project, I have recognized that any oral history project, done right, is a lot more complex that I think we envisioned when we volunteered to do an SLA oral history project as one contribution from the Fellows.

Please read the attachment and respond to me with questions, suggestions, reactions, offers of help of one kind or another, etc.

As I recall at least four of you said you will be in Louisville and would be willing to sit down and talk about the project. I think Tom, Sylvia Piggott, Dorothy, and Judy responded to me weeks ago. If you are still willing, could we get together at the registration desk of the hotel at 4:00 on Wed. afternoon? Obviously, if anyone else wants to join us, please do. If that time/day doesn’t work for any of you, please let me know. I arrive in Louisville around noon. My cell is 203-858-8245.

I think this could be a very exciting, worthwhile project, but there are a huge number of decisions to be made and work to be done. If there could be funding for hiring a project manager, the whole thing would move along more quickly.

Originally it was suggested that Donna and I get a short slot on each of the Cabinet agendas, in order to announce the project and ask that SLA units consider volunteering to interview one or more of their members. I will request those time slots, but the announcement will have to be very preliminary until we decide the issues involved.

Thanks for your time.

Susan DiMattia

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Sounds like a great start to me.  Also sounds like it becomes part of the SLA Library and Archive.  A new position would have to be created to support this full time. Our librarian only works two days a week so this is beyond that scope.  We need to write a grant proposal for funds to start it off whether they are internal to SLA or from an outside grants source.

The Fellows are willing helpers but Susan is right - this is a big job for the coordinator and the data once collected needs attention to properly archive, index, and maintain .

Can someone take on making an estimated budget and work flow outline?

Margie Halva

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Susan,

This is a great first step and thanks for pulling these ideas together. Some thoughts I have:

* What is hoped to be obtained out of the oral histories? In my current volunteer work at an archives research questions encountered, they certainly can be quite varied. Nonetheless, there are likely a set of key points or areas that we should try to capture to keep it manageable. In addition to the points made in your document, many times people want to know what it was like to be a member of the profession and the Association during various times of history, whether a regular member or a leader. Their perceptions of events and value would be of historic interest I would think. We certainly want to capture as much as is reasonably possible without driving the project into overload.

* I particularly like the idea of using the Annual Conference as a venue to do interviews. It would save on travel and shipping expenses, minimize the potential for loss or damage to equipment and related materials, and help in consistency. This could also be a great training venue for the interviewers, as would the Winter Leadership Conference. In coordination with the Centennial Committee, I would also suggest that we employ a 'train the trainers' concept to have Unit leaders or Unit members to be a part of this project -- again, saving on travel expenses and enabling broader participation and thus a feeling of 'ownership' across the membership for the results.

* While it would be good to consider people to interview who are not SLA members but who have had a significant influence on our profession, I would suggest this be treated as an exception rather than a rule so that we keep the project focused and do-able. As opportunities and scheduling permits, we could try to include the non-SLA folks.

I hope these thoughts are helpful and I would be happy to assist in some fashion as deemed appropriate as this goes forward.

Richard Hulser

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Margie:

Good points about the need for a budget. I like the idea of exploring grant money. I can also talk to Nancy Sansalone and the Centennial Commission. I know there are funds set aside for the "Centennial" year and perhaps we can request some money to get this kick-started and then seek ongoing funding.

Lynne and I are heading off to the SLA Leadership Summit ( I think Lynne might already be there) and can bring it up with the Commission when we meet tomorrow.

Best Regards,

Karen Reczek

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Dear All,

I will not be at the Louisville meeting but please keep me in the loop. I agree with comments from folks who point out the complexities and need for planning and funding to do oral history right – we do not want to reinvent any wheels. J There is also the issue of permissions and digital rights.

Sharyn Ladner

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Greetings all.
 

The ALA approach sounds to me like a much different approach than the Fellows had in mind when we talked about this at the Fellows meeting last June. There are some helpful things here like the need for copyright releases etc. Like the kiosk. Questions like why and who were fleshed out more at the meeting.
 

The purpose for the project was to take a snapshot of SLA that includes more than veteran and leadership members. We said we wanted a broad range of members represented. we also said there are people outside SLA we might want to include. The contents of the interview would be framed by the list of questions. As I recall, Susan had volunteered to do a draft question list and post it to the fellows for reaction. We want recollections of both how those being interviewed remember changes to SLA and the profession during their careers, perhaps where the profession is going next, and what it is like to be a member of SLA and the profession now.
 

Do we need transcripts? If they are podcasts people can listen to them. Heck, maybe we should do them a You Tube videos. Maybe transcripts can come later.
 

We also said we would get volunteers to be the interviewers and do training. We should be prepared to do that at the June meeting.
 

ALA is a much larger organization than ours. I don't think using their exact model is right for us.

The Veterans History project here at the Library uses family members to interview veterans using a script. It gives them requirements in terms of the equipment they need to use and instructions as to how to submit the piece.  It emphasizes inclusion. I think the kiosk approach is also very good to supplement what we get the other way and perhaps the fellows can do the interviewing there. As for where they reside, we are doing this for SLA. If SLA doesn't want this then we shouldn't do it. I would like to see us be flexible and nimble in our approach to this.
 

Just my 2 cents.
 

Regards,

 

Donna Scheeder

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Thank you for your comments Donna.

I certainly didn’t mean to suggest that we should follow the ALA model. They are quite bogged down at this point, so they don’t provide an excellent model to begin with. They have, however, raised some interesting questions that we may need to answer.

I had lengthy conversations with Carla Funk, Evelyn Shaevel and Mary Langman at MLA. They have offered some very interesting input and advice. Immediately after the informal meeting in Louisville, I will recap everything for the Fellows. I have a draft list of questions, as you mentioned, but I think there needs to be a better feeling of who will use the interviews, for what purpose, before we begin to deal with the structure.

As I recall Donna, you were going to contact the folks at Headquarters to find out about the availability of a place to house the interviews, the technology available, and whether there is any funding available. Do you have any information on those points? I’d be happy to include them in whatever report I do, post-Louisville. MLA included $5500 in their budget this year for covering the expenses of a standing committee of members who do most of the interviews. They are paid for their expenses, but nothing else. One member of the committee serves a four-year term as project manager (without pay, although apparently they are beginning to rethink that in favor of some type of compensation). They also have a staff person (Mary) who, along with her other duties with government relations and archives, is the liaison to the Oral History Committee. They pay someone to do transcripts of the interviews and then the committee edits them and sends them back to the interviewees for approval. From what I’ve been hearing from several places, people don’t listen to entire interviews, so the podcasts may not be the best way to go as a final product, although that is worth exploring. It is possible to key in timelines so people can zero in on specific parts of the interview that interests them, if they don’t want to listen to the entire thing.

There are many creative ways of doing a project like this.  I think the first questions need to be who will use them for what purpose. Only after we know that will we know what format they should be, what questions should be included, who should be interviewed (in what priority order) and where they should be stored in order to provide access to anyone who wants them. I’m convinced we can do a good job, keeping it relatively simple and creating a very valuable end product. We just need to answer questions and explore options before moving forward.

SusanvDiMattia

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Good work, Susan.  I think it is important to remember
that individuals may have played a variety of roles in
the library and information science profession.  A set
group of questions is important, but there needs to be
flexibility on the part of the questioner for weaving
the different threads of the individual's career
together.  MLA also sometimes has a seasoned member
(who knows the interviewee well) to do the interview. 
There is, however, a strong cadre of experienced
interviewers.  

You are quite right that the oral histories are used
in a variety of ways.  In preparing for my MLA Janet
Doe Lecture, I scanned the transcripts of the
individuals who were important to my topic (MLA's
educational and professional development programs) and
used the information in my manuscript.  A wonderful
part of having the early oral histories was being able
to incorporate sound bites from early giants of MLA
into my speech, including Janet Doe herself.  At the
time she was interviewed (about 1970), she was
approaching 80. Most of us in MLA had never had the
opportunity to meet her, so it was great to use her
voice.  It was well appreciated by my audience, and I
believe it was one of the first times that the
recordings had been used in this manner.  They are, as
you know, maintained at NLM. [Note: here is a link to the
1998 interview with Fred Roper http://www.mlanet.org/about/history/roper_f.html 
Note also that there is a 40-page transcript to the three tape recordings.]

I'm sorry I won't be in Louisville, since this is a
topic in which I have a great deal of interest.  Thank
you for your efforts on our behalf.

Fred Roper

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Hi Susan,

 

I'll be in Louisville and would love to join everyone for this discussion. Many years ago I was interviewed by Doreen Cohen, librarian and trained oral historian. She was amazing! She interviewed 12 of us from the San Andreas chapter. (see her oral histories at http://www.spokenhistory.com/ex/sa.html) She was so good and inspiring that I've considered taking courses in oral histories, but of course, haven't yet done so ;) But at least hopefully I can contribute some ideas and energy to this project.

 

Cindy Hill

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Fellows’ Oral History Project

Report on “conversations” in Louisville, Jan. 29, 2008 

During the SLA Leadership Summit in Louisville on Jan. 23, Judy Field, Cindy Hill, Dorothy McGarry, and Susan DiMattia met informally to talk about where to go from here. PLEASE, add your thoughts, comments, criticisms to anything that follows. We were a small group trying to figure out how to get a large project off the ground in a short period of time.

Centennial Committee Chair Dav Robertson was pleased with the direction we were taking. One of our Centennial Committee liaisons and fellow Fellow, Karen Reczek was also part of the discussions. She approached Nancy Sanselone about the possibilities of funding for the project.

It was apparent that the philosophy, at least for the beginning, should be “just get something going.” The project is worth doing well, but not worth holding up in order to do it perfectly. The Story Corps concept resonates with many people, so that will be one thing to explore before Seattle.

Committee

            In addition to the four people who met in Louisville, all of whom have agreed to serve in whatever way is necessary, Tom Rink has expressed interest in joining us. He had a schedule conflict in Louisville. We discussed needing some younger SLA members who are tech savvy and who may not necessarily be Fellows. Some names suggested were Christie Confetti Higgins, Scott Brown, Jill Strand, Eli Edwards (currently going to law school with an IP focus). David Cappoli from UCLA is also on the Centennial Committee, but he said he would help in any way he can. Marie Tilson was also suggested as a good project manager. She is retired, but is still active in SLA.

            If anyone on the Fellows list would be willing to help in some way, please let me know and give me some indication of what you might like to do.

            Please suggest names to add to the committee, either for the tech expertise or the project management area.

Working title

            In Louisville, everyone was invited to have their photo taken as part of the “Faces of SLA” project. For that reason, the ad hoc committee thought we could use the title “Voices of SLA”, at least as a working title for the time being.

Budget

            We suggested a very arbitrary budget of $3000-5000 for the first year, to get things rolling. That amount would cover the possibility of the purchase of some equipment that could be shipped to various places where interviews were being conducted, as well as an honorarium for a project manager to keep the project moving and organized. We probably will not need that much, but it’s better to have some room to explore.

Story Corps Model

            For example, Story Corps provides what they call a “kit” that is available for rent. It includes a professional digital recorder, two 40 minute memory cards, a professional-quality microphone, studio-grade headphones and a user’s guide. They charge $150 for a seven-day rental, including shipping both ways and a copy of your interviews on CD. I doubt we would want them to provide us the copy of the interview, and we probably would want an interview that was longer than 40 minutes, but they can be a model for an SLA Oral History kit.

We thought it would be good to try and have a story corps. type of set-up in Seattle, as well as possibly in Quebec during IFLA in August, to capture some international SLA members.

For those of you who are not familiar with Story Corps, check it out at www.storycorps.net. We would have volunteer Fellows in the “booth”, with a list of suggested topics to guide people who want to register their stories. These would probably be more informal than the other interviews done by trained volunteers in more formal settings, interviewing people that have been selected specifically because of what they can contribute to the project.

Existing Interviews

            The San Andreas Chapter has a series of 12 interviews conducted by member and oral historian Doreen Cohen between 1995 and 1999. Cindy is checking with Doreen to see if we could transport the transcripts of those interviews to the Centennial web site, when they are ready to receive them. That would be a ready core of interviews to get the ball rolling. They include Cindy, Monica Ertel, Eugenie Prime, Bill Fisher, and others. You can read the transcripts on Doreen’s web site, www.spokenhistory.com. Cindy will also see whether Doreen could do a training webinar so that people who are interested in conducting one or more interviews in their local area could be trained and would all be on the same “page.”

Training

            Supposedly there will be an oral history CE Course offered in Seattle. We certainly can’t ask volunteers to spend the money to take the course, but we can make them aware that it is available. I will be contacting Shelba at Headquarters to get more details on this, and on whether it might be available on Click U. after Seattle.

            Leaders of the Georgia Chapter told me that their Archivist does oral histories, so I will be in touch with that person as well. During some of the Cabinet meetings, I tried to talk up the idea of the oral histories and several Chapter officers were excited about having an excuse to feature and honor some of their members. When we get a little further along in planning/decision-making, I will be posting some information to the Leadership list in order to alert people to begin planning for doing oral histories as one of their Centennial activities.

Technology

            People had several suggestions about the type of technology that might be used, ranging from iPod-type devices to Wimbo systems with cameras. We will be contacting Quon at headquarters (it was announced during the conference that he has been named Chief Technology Officer) to find out what he would recommend; whether SLA has any equipment that can be loaned as necessary, etc.

Format

            We had a lot of discussion about the format for the interviews. The consensus seemed to be that, in the interests of keeping things simple and getting a solid body of interviews done when the Centennial web site goes up, probably in time for Seattle, we should do only audio in the beginning, with the possibility of doing video in the future. The opinion seemed to be that we probably don’t need transcripts in the beginning. The results should be linked to student chapter web sites, since we think that students and faculty will make heavy use of the oral histories. We also suggested that a 90 minute length was optimal.

            During the discussions, one person suggested that, at some point, we may need to make it possible for people to cut across interviews to follow specific topics. We may not always be as interested in individual people as we are in a “slice” of answers to a particular question. A timed index could be an important thing to consider.

Legal

            In a discussion with Nancy Sanselone, I told her that I had samples of several signature forms that need to be filled out by interviewer and interviewee. She said she would give them to SLA legal counsel after I send them to her, in order to have documents that SLA is comfortable with.

Questions

            The group agreed that there probably should be a core of questions that everyone answers. Two or three “tracks” of questions should be provided to interviewers, to use depending on whether the interviewee is a current or former “leader” of SLA, whether they are a Fellow, whether they are relatively new to the profession, etc.

            I have a set of questions taken from all of the sources I have consulted (MLA, LC, the San Andreas project, among others) and I will be drawing up a suggested list to submit to the Fellows and to our Centennial liaisons, by the end of February, if not before.

Issues to address

            Who should “edit” the interview and submit it to the interviewee for approval? Probably the interviewer, particularly since it would be best if the interviewer knows the interviewee and therefore can pick up on the content of the conversation and the intentions of the interviewee.

            Should we submit questions to the interviewee in advance? Some oral historians say no, because it takes away the spontaneity. Others say that it makes for a more meaningful interview if the interviewee is at least familiar with the general topics to be covered.

            How will the oral histories be used? For historical interests, as PR/promotion for SLA, for students and faculty. Who/how else?

            Where can the interviews be archived, particularly after the Centennial? Will the Centennial web site continue to exist, be repurposed, etc.

That’s it for now. Please contribute your thoughts to the process and help move the project forward.

Susan DiMattia

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Feb. 20, 2008

Colleagues

Just a few comments in response to Susan. As someone who has been very active in MLA over the years, I think Susan is absolutely right -- they do have a very good oral history program. A lot of the success is due to the committee chair Diane Mackenzie who has been with the program for many years. So you need someone who is really dedicated to the task. Mary Langman is also excellent as the headquarters liaison. There is quite a "history of doing histories" in the medical library field -- not only MLA but also the National Library of Medicine and other medical libraries. I think this is partly because there is a lot of work done in the history of medicine and health in medical schools -- sometimes it is a separate department -- and so librarians have picked up on that for themselves.

 

As for who would use the material, I think there would be doctoral and even master's students who would be interested in the oral histories as primary research materials. We do need to build up historical materials so that we leave a legacy and since we do not write a lot of historical papers the oral histories may end up being more important than ever. The interest in archives is growing in LIS programs and we also have quite a number of students in that specialty.

 

I continue to think that it is a shame that our peer reviewed journal Special Libraries was suspended some years ago. This was an outlet for longer, more research oriented articles in our field and could well have been  vehicle for historical publications.

 

Joanne Gard Marshal