Customer Reviews

The Tape-Recorded Interview: A Manual for Field Workers in Folklore and Oral History

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I'm compiling an oral history of hip hop and this book wasn't really useful in helping me anticipate and solve problems I'm likely to come across in my project.

The author is a folklorist/archivist who specializes in New England folklore and crafts. His suggestions are geared toward people who will be interviewing "the common man" and older people, so suggestions like "put an ad in the local paper asking for interviewees" and "your subject may be hesitant to talk and/or think his experience doesn't have value" are totally not helpful in regard to my project.

Also, the guide is really geared towards archivists who will naturally consider their cassettes of interviews the most important source as opposed to the transcript, so little attention is given to the concerns of those editing oral history book projects. Little info is given regarding editing interviews down, narrative structure, how lengthy quotes should be and other concerns the first-time editor will undoubtedly have.

Don't get me wrong, this is a good book. It is well-written, the illustrating examples are interesting and the appendix containing release forms is very helpful. It's just better for field researchers than project editors.

This book is a very good instruction manual on the tape recorded interview. He talks about both the technical and nontechnical aspects of the interview. It is an excellent primer for the starting interviewer. I recommend it highly.

Ives' book is a fine introduction to fieldwork. It's especially useful for oral historians and folklorists, but there are good, practical ideas that are useful for anyone who uses a recorder to document cultural traditions and local history. It's a good introductory manual, and it's also interesting to read to gain a better understanding of ways that Ives completed his fieldwork for his research for his books. This book is practical. The section that describes "what to do when it won't work" is especially useful. Although some material is dated, mainly because the manual doesn't discuss a lot of the newer digital technology, additional supplements about digital recording technology will fill out the gaps. But it's also worth remembering that many people continue to use tape recorders for fieldwork. Ives has a fine style of writing. The anecdotes and reminiscences reveal his great experience and expertise as an old pro, and they make the book an interesting read, especially for a "How-to" manual. An added plus to this book is that Ives produced a video called "The Oral Historian's Work" which demonstrates and reinforces a lot of the techniques that are presented in the text. Couple the book with the video, and a beginning fieldworker is well prepared for a foray into the field.