The Oral History Manual by Barbara W. Sommer, Mary Kay Quinlan

Abstract

The Oral HistoryManual By Barbara W. Sommer andMary Kay Quinlan AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, Calif., 2002. Illustrations, bibliography, index. 144 pages. $70.00 cloth, $24.95 paper. Reviewed by Donna Sinclair Oregon Historical Society and Portland State University The Oral History Manual attempts tobridge thegap between theoreticaltreat ments of oral history and practical guidebooks. In thepreface, Barbara Sommer andMary Kay Quinlan point out thatno specificformula exists fororal history.Oral history projects are kalei doscopic and thusdependent on project design ers, interviewers, and narrators to shape them. Oral interviews have specialvalue in making his torycome alive through the words of realpeople, with a process that is interactivebut conducted within a defined structure. Sommer and Quinlan define oral history as recorded interviews thatuse "a structured and well-researched interview outline, with awitness toor a participant ina historical event. Itsaim is to collect and preserve theperson's first-hand in formation andmake itavailable to researchers. Careful attentiontoequipment selection,legaland ethical issues,and processing techniques charac terizetheoral historyprocess" (p. 1).Theymodel their manual on thisdefinition,providing a how toguide for mastering the techniques oforal his toryandmethods forcollecting and processing the audio results. Themain strength of the OralHistory Manual is that it combines tools for effectiveplanning and interviewing withmultiple resources forfur therstudyand includes the significant Oral His tory Association evaluation guidelines. The au thorsfocuson avoiding the most common prob lemwith oral history projects ? confusing the interview with theoral historyprocess.A project's success isbased on planning, processing, and the work ofduplicating tapes, transcribing,and pre paringmaterials forcataloging thatfollows.The best chapters are those on project organization, legaland ethical issues,and practicalmatters re garding interviewpreparation and techniques, transcription,and theprocess ofworking with a repositoryfrom startto finish ? key elements in awell-conducted oral history interview. Too of ten, oral histories are collected without focus, or ganization, or,most important,follow through, which can resultin interviews notbeing preserved. The authors also point out the many ethical di mensions ofan oralhistoryinterview, which come down to two significantfactors:historical integ rityand responsibility to thenarrator. Quinlan and Sommer provide good, practi cal advice regarding the interviewsetting,inter view techniques, and processing and care oforal histories.They dealwith copyrightissues,Internet distribution, interviewequipment, project bud gets, and researchpreparation. Notes at theend of each chapter provide excellent resources for each of the topics.They also provide appendices with forms forkeeping a project organized and obtaining importantinformationaswell as a glos saryof terms,a tremendously useful annotated bibliography, and an index. One of thebook's weaknesses is the chapter on the complexity of choosing equipment. In addition to a brief history of recording equip ment, they wisely advise readers towork with a repositoryduring theplanning process. In light of theirbroad audience, however, the advice to use expensive,broadcast-quality equipment inall cases, both audio and video, isunrealistic. The recording technology section is really too com plex andwill soon be dated, yet itdoes not offer concrete recommendations based on financial circumstance. How can you conduct an oral his toryproject and achieve good sound without spending a lotofmoney? The authors leave out one piece of simple advice ? use a good micro Reviews 167 phone above all else.Realistic advice, inaddition to the complex discussion of analog vs. digital and audio vs. video, would have improved the book, as would a section on organizing volun teers and a sample budget and overview of the timean oral historyproject entails. This small book in some ways attempts to do toomuch. The authors raise important issues such as the limitations ofmemory, thevalue of oral history to disenfranchised groups, and its use incommunitybuilding, but theydo not have the space to addressmany of these themeswell. The cover, an image of threewhite women of different generations, presents a far too conven tional imageofwhat oral historycan do andmay not appeal to thebroad audience theauthors seek. The strengthof theOral HistoryManual lies in practical advice, organizational overviews, and compilation of the importantresourcesonwhich oral historians rely. The book was conceived "for generalpublic use,"but itboth hits andmisses its target (p. 82). For individualswho want todo a family history,thebook istoo complex. For small community or historical organizations, it would be a veryuseful resource, and thebibliography and appendices cannot be beat. Book Notes Compiled and written by Ken DuBois The Great...