- Hello everyone from Austin, Texas
where it's a new day in the USA.
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Thank you all for joining us today and welcome
to today's webinar with the Texas Oral History Association.
My name is Lea DeForest and I'm the communications manager
with Texas Digital Library.
Next slide please.
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So on with the show.
Today's presenter is Steven Sielaff,
the Senior Editor and Collections Manager
with the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University.
Steven also serves with the Oral History Association
and he's going to present to us today
about remote interviewing tips for oral historians.
So Steven will start sharing the screen
and you can stop sharing yours.
- Okay, thank you so much, Lea for that introduction.
And I will share my screen with all of you.
It's so wonderful to be with a TDL again today.
I had a lot of fun in my first webinar
and I'm sure today will be the same.
So, today I have the privilege
of sharing with you a brand new resource
from the Oral History Association
which is their remote interviewing resource suite.
So as many of you might imagine
with the onset of the pandemic this year
the oral history world was thrust into the world
of remote interviewing just as all of us were thrust
into the world of remote meetings and remote work.
So the association took
upon itself to create a suite of resources specifically
for those who now have to consider remote work
as the only option to continue their projects.
So, first off a little bit about
the Oral History Association is the professional association
for oral history in the United States.
This is their website, oralhistory.org.
And if you come to their website and look in the resources
drop down, you'll find two of the resources right
up top that I'll be talking about today.
And then if you come down a little further
you'll see this principles and best practices resource here.
So that's the first one I want to talk about.
And the great thing about all of these resource suites
that that I'm about to mention is
that they have all been either created or updated recently.
So the overall principles
and best practices for doing oral history
no matter where you are in person remote
all the ethical considerations are built around
there are available here on the best practices
but principles and best practices page
those were updated in 2018.
Then also I wanted to mention the archiving oral
history manual best practices, because there are a lot
of aspects of this particular resource that are referenced
in the remote interviewing resource
that we'll be talking about today.
And this was a task force I was able to serve
on in 2019 to put together a good overall viewing
of our best Archiving practice in oral history.
And of course, for remote interviewing, a lot
of that has to do with we're using new technologies,
new platforms to create these materials
and how best to manage these materials that might exist
in places that we used to not consider as far
as where files were stored or which programs
or pieces of equipment we're creating these files for us.
So archiving oral history is another great resource here
but today we're all about the remote interviewing resource
which again, it can be found right here
in the dropdown menu on the OHA main page.
So this summer I was invited to join a group
and I want to give credit
to the full task force, Jen Kramer and Natalie
Andy Kolovos, Rachel Mere, Sarah Milligan, myself
Amy Sharasisky and our chair, Alison Tracy Taylor
who was president of OHA last year.
We were all invited to come together last summer
and put together this resource suite
for folks who are considering conducting a remote interview.
And we wanted to be very prescriptive, but at the same time
provide a lot of opportunities for folks
to get a full sense of the platforms, the technology
and the considerations out there
for remote interviewing.
And to start off the project and to start off
my presentation today I wanted to focus mainly
on the decision tree.
So early on we thought
because there are so many considerations
for conducting an interview in the first place
but especially remote conducting both
for you as an interviewer and as your interviewee
has the same considerations.
We really need a place to put all
of this to have people to work their way
through all these considerations.
And so eventually we decided
on a decision tree and this is the decision tree.
So what I'm going to do today is I'm kind of
going to work my way through this decision tree
and through all of these considerations.
And as I do so, I'm going to highlight some
of the more specific resources that were part
of the suite of materials that we created.
So the decision tree in and of itself is a living document
but within the decision tree itself, we have a lot
of hyperlinks that shoot out to more information.
So starting right at the top
if we're using the start here polygon and say
is it possible to conduct an in-person interview
or is a remote interview the best choice,
we have a hyperlink that will take you to the narrative.
So on the main OHA site, we have a very lengthy narrative
of all the materials, all the considerations
all the conversations that we had and bringing
this material to you, that you can pop out
at any point of the decision tree and read more about it.
So that's generally how the decision tree
and the resources behave with each other.
And later I'll be bouncing back
and forth and show you some additional resources
especially some breakout PDFs that are part of this as well.
But let's go back to the decision tree and start out.
So, I've already mentioned the OHA principles and best
practices guidelines that resource that's available.
If you're new to oral history
I think that's a great place to just start.
Just go ahead and read through those guidelines before
you get to the phase of, okay, this is what it normally is
and then here are the additional considerations
for remote interviewing.
So if we're starting here
is it possible to conduct an in-person interview
or is remote interview the best choice?
So a lot of us when the pandemic
set in and we had an ongoing projects
or maybe we were about to start a new project immediately
we're like, okay, how do we make this work?
What's the easiest routes, and I've got to get this done
but we wanted to take a step back at first
and talk about where you are in that process
and whether or not a remote interview is actually
the best option for you.
So these bullet points, I think, are really important
for everyone to go through this list
of bullet points and think about their particular project
think about their particular interview
or interviewee or interviewees and where they are
whether or not a remote interview actually makes sense.
So for example, it's like, how prescient is this?
Is this something that we absolutely need to capture now
or could we maybe wait a bit?
Back in March when we first started considering
these possibilities of course we had no idea
how long the pandemic was going to go on.
And of course we're still in the middle of it.
So there might've been conversations is like, okay
we'll do I'll wait six months
or do I wait a year or whatnot?
Is this something that's pertinent to my research right now?
Or is this something that I can wait on and do some
other maybe archival research or write some
or whatever I'm gathering these oral histories for.
But that's the first thing is like
because honestly that in-person experience
with oral history is something that is very
hard to duplicate even with the best technology.
And there's two facets of that really
there's the technological facet, as far as the media quality
of being in the same room with professional equipment
versus having to do something
over a Zoom platform like we're on right now
or conducting an audio only interview
via a cell phone or a landline with an adapter.
So the quality of course is a big impact
but also the camaraderie, the connection that you make
in the interview is so difficult.
Obviously if you're in an audio only environment,
you can't even see the other individual
that you're interviewing, but even if you do have
the ability to be on Zoom or on Skype or some
of these other platforms, any of us who have been
on these platforms, know what conversations are like
and know all the starts and stops and know how
hard it is sometimes to even understand someone, especially
if there's the tiniest bit of a glitch in the system.
So all of those things are built into this overall question
of, is this the right time for this?
So I encourage you, like I said
to go through these bullet points and think about
if this is the best option for you.
So after that, we basically have on both sides
of the decision tree here, some overarching considerations
on the left, we have the general steps that you will
undertake for a remote interview.
So I'll go through those first.
So the first step is to take the inventory
of your technological access and preferences
for both you and the interviewer.
And I'm going to come back to this
because this is the bulk of the decision tree here.
Then of course, you need to consider setting
up a pre-interview to test all your equipment.
We've always been big on pre-interviews
before you actually conduct an oral history interview.
There's a lot of great stuff that you can do
in a pre-interview, but now in a remote environment
it's almost mandatory because now not only
do we have to test maybe just one little recorder
but we have to test our equipment on our end,
their equipment on their end, how we're connecting.
If it's a video situation
what's the lighting looking like, you know
all of these things in addition
that obviously are good things to go
through before the day of the interview.
Otherwise you might spend an equal time setting
up the interview the day of the interview
as you're actually conducting the interview.
And then of course we have conducting the interview
and then saving the recording
making sure all the permissions are accounted for.
And all of these things are made more difficult
obviously not being in the room with the individual.
So the question of where the file is being saved initially
where does it live?
How secure is it?
And then of course being able to get like deed of gift
forms, you know contracts signed, data forms filled out.
All of these things are impacted
by a remote environment and require a certain amount
or amount of remote work in and of itself
whether it's being mailed to your interviewees or emailed
or scanned or collaborated upon in a cloud environment.
So all of these things just mean more time
and more effort going into a remote environment.
Okay, now I'm going to head over
to the right here and talk about the special considerations.
So in a lot of these cases, these were things
that we obviously wanted people to think about
or to read about before they started a remote interview
that didn't necessarily have a place
in the overall like decision tree of technology
and how you're setting up these things.
But all of these are very important.
So we'll start out with the first special consideration
here which is, does the interview contain sensitive
information or require an elevated level of security?
So if we open this up and take a look
at the considerations here.
So as you can see this takes you back
to the overall narrative.
This is number nine in the overall narrative.
So we have specific narration and specific
further link outs about both of these considerations.
One is security overall consideration.
A lot of us might be familiar
with this using online platforms since the pandemic.
Those Zoom's been in the spotlight a lot itself
regarding, okay is this connection, this meeting
I'm on or this interview I'm on, is it encrypted?
What's the level of security?
How easy is it for someone to either get
into this platform while I'm conducting the interview
or access materials that I create from this interview
like a recording of the audio or the video after the fact
especially if I'm thinking
about an interview that already has security concerns
or might contain sensitive information.
And then in a lot of cases, sensitive information
you might not necessarily be anticipating going
into the interview, but as the interview ebbs and flows
maybe your interviewee talks about something
or mentions a name or whatnot
and suddenly you've got some fairly sensitive
information that's being recorded
that's being stored maybe on a cloud server somewhere
we're not quite sure if it's encrypted or not whatnot.
So all of these things are good to think about
for your particular project, for your particular interview
for your interviewees and consider the platforms
or the technology that you're using for remote interviews
that's going to lead to that heightened level of security.
So for example, Zoom would be an example for example.
If I was a little concerned
about the security of the actual interview itself
and I had an enterprise account with Zoom, I could say, well
the default recording structure is to hit the record button
and it lives in a cloud server for, I think
90 days or 120 days or something like that.
And I can access it at any time like that.
Maybe I don't want it on the cloud,
maybe like in a public place like that.
And I would prefer to actually record locally
so that when I'm done with my Zoom recording
I can actually go back and exit out of the Zoom platform.
It compresses the file for me
and it allows me to save it locally on my own computer.
Therefore, I have more authority with that file
and that file is more secure.
Okay.
So that's the first consideration.
One thing also that I'll point out here that you'll see
in various areas on this decision tree are the case studies.
So a few of us created case studies
for this resource suite as well.
So this case study in particular is the Columbia project.
They were actually already involved
with the president Obama's oral history project
before the pandemic hit, they already had
as you can probably imagine a good number
of concerns going into that project for security
or restriction possible restrictions or whatnot.
So when they had the shift to a remote environments
that just compounded issues for them.
So this is a great case study PDF you can print this out,
take this with you to read not only
about their security concerns, but actually how they ended
up using Zoom to conduct interviews after the fact.
So I know this case study in particular
they were mailing folks like Blue Yeti mics,
so that people on the other end would have a quality mic
for their Zoom interview as well.
And so we'll get more into that when we talk
about technology, okay.
The other considerations here, have you been proactive
in making the interview space accessible?
So usually when we think of accessibility with oral history
it might be if someone needs help entering a building
like if I'm hosting someone,
but in the online sphere of remote interviewing
or maybe even just on telephones fear
we have to think of other accessibility issues as well.
Especially if someone is a little hard
of hearing or maybe has difficulty with sight as well.
We talked about how difficult it is to interview
someone when you can't see them.
But even if you can see them
even if I'm on Zoom, I'm like, Oh, it's great
I can connect to anyone via Zoom.
Maybe interviewee their eyesight
isn't as great, especially if they're having to stare
at a screen for one to two hours.
So some things to think about there.
Restrictions as to the recording of where eventually
the materials can be housed
institutional review boards, IRB.
If you're not familiar with those
those are basically like little fiefdoms across the country
depending on where you are, where your institution is
they have to get IRB approval
for projects that involve human subjects.
IRB might have something to say
about where you're storing your materials or the process
of handling those materials in and of themselves.
IRB has been an ongoing sticky situation for oral history.
Oral historians have been trying for years
to get just a blanket exemption from IRB approval.
In a lot of cases, they are exempt depending
on where you are and your relationship.
So Baylor University, our IRB board actually
does not require a special authorization
for us when we're conducting our oral histories
but it's something to keep in mind here.
So if you're not sure, it's always good to go ahead.
Find who your local IRB representative is
reach out before you start a project.
So those are kind of our special considerations over here.
So let's go back up though, to the, okay
we've decided we are going to conduct a remote interview.
We need to go ahead and move forward.
And a lot of us, you know
this is time sensitive situations here.
So how do we move forward?
So the first question we have in the decision tree, as far
as technology is concerned is do the participants
have access to high speed internet?
So the very first thing you have to get in your head
when you're considering remote interviewing environments
is that it's not just your environment
it's your interviewees environment as well.
A lot of us again that have been using Zoom
or other platforms for the past several months
we might have a great space within our own homes.
We might have an ethernet cable leading
to our computers rather than just being on wifi.
We've done all these things to make sure
that our connections are stable
so that when we have that important meeting
we're not popping in and out.
And, you know, having a very bad impression
upon the others in the meeting.
Well, the same can be said for conducting an interview
but it's also for your participants and some
of your participants might not necessarily have been living
in the same world that we've been living
in the past several months
as far as having all this experience.
Christmas party we had a church Christmas Zoom last month.
And our priest's wife mentioned as we started the Zoom
that this was the second time that she had used Zoom.
So I would gather that there's, especially amongst
if you have participants
in your oral history project that are getting up in years
perhaps, they might have similar situations
where you can't assume knowledge.
I always talk about, even
with students coming to high school
or coming in to the university here, you can't assume
that they all just natively know every single
like web platform, app on their phone,
suite of materials on your computer or whatnot.
It's really going to be down to each person
and determining where they live, what they have access to.
So obviously in a lot of situations, how we determine
whether or not we're going to have a audio only interview
or a video interview has to do with how their internet is
and not just that they have access to internet
but do they have access to enough bandwidth?
And in some cases you have to get
over here to the pre-interview phase
before you actually know if this is going to work or not
but just keep this in mind as we're going through.
Okay, so let's say they do have access to it but the further
question is the narrator comfortable
with using internet based technology?
So this is something that we talk
about sometimes with in-person interviews
as far as choosing audio versus video, there are a lot
of folks who just do not want to be videotaped.
And unfortunately, a lot of these solutions that we have
for conducting remote interviews are video-based.
So the question then becomes, okay
can you use a video platform
or are they comfortable with a video platform?
Will they only be comfortable
if they're allowed to prepare ahead of time?
Like as far as get themselves ready
for the camera, you know,
I'm ready for my closeup Mr. Deville.
Or is it a situation where maybe
you use video to connect
with the individual during the interview
but you have it stipulated within your project agreements
or your deed of gifts that the video will only be used
to conduct the interview.
But afterwards we will only use the audio
for actually creating derivative works
or making it accessible in the long run.
So what I actually did at the institute here
is I created a new Zoom form
because we are using Zoom for our video remote interviews
and then that Zoom form, our interviewees have the option.
We can say, yes, I would like you to preserve
and use the video alongside the audio
or only use the video to connect.
And then afterwards, please get rid of video when
you process the actual interview for a session.
So those are things to keep in mind.
If they're not comfortable or they don't have access
to high-speed internet, we have the question,
do participants have access to a phone?
And then there's two options here, landline or cell phone?
So as we come to these options, one, two or three
I'll scroll down in a second
and show you more to do with each of these options.
But again, with a certain age
of interviewee comes a certain likelihood
of them having a landline just
and the inverse is correct as well.
So, typically the younger you are
the more likely you're not going to have a landline
but if you have a situation where you yourself
as an interviewer have a landline and your interviewee does
or maybe you work in an institution that has a landline
that opens up an option to you.
If they have a cell phone though,
you still have a particular option open to you as well.
And there's a lot of middle ground here
with interviewees that either have cell phones
or tablets that on their end might be a better solution
than sitting in front of an actual computer
or sitting in front of a laptop.
So right now, as I'm giving this presentation to you
I've got a fairly nice webcam set up in front of me.
And I've got a headset with a mic right close to my face.
So you can see me pretty well.
You can hear me pretty well, but most people
especially if they're using their own technology
their laptop that they might have at home,
the only video that they have is that little pinprick
of a camera and a pinprick of a microphone.
And whether or not they have good headphones or not
or a good microphone that they can get close to their face.
So in some of these situations, whatever they have
as far as their smartphone is concerned
or whatever they have as far as their tablet is concerned
might actually be presenting them with the best equipment
onboard equipment that they have in their home.
Even though it might be a smaller form factor
than either a desktop, which again, a lot
of people don't have desktops anymore or a laptop solution.
So one of our options will be cell phone here.
Okay.
So, but let's go on to the other side,
let's say they do have access to internet.
Do they have access to a computer
or a tablet with a webcam or microphone?
If not, then we go to the phone route.
But if so, then we go down here to this green box,
do any participants have a preference
of recording audio or video?
And so this is getting
to that phase that I was talking about before is
that, there are platforms that I'll share
here in a bit, that all they do is audio.
So they have suites online
you can connect via your computer, connect via tablet
or whatever, and it's just audio.
And a lot of this comes
from the podcasting world that existed pre-pandemic.
But of course, we also have platforms
like Zoom that have video.
So that's when we get into option number three
which is if you have video connecting opportunities
you can make your way through here.
And depending on what you have
and what your interviewee has, you might have a
situation where remote recording really isn't going to work.
In which case you're kind of back up at the start
and you have to think about that in-person interview.
And I will say there have been interviews conducted
since the pandemic started
that we've a session that were in-person interviews.
It was just, people were sitting far enough apart
from each other so that they were following
social distancing guidelines.
They were wearing masks.
You can have microphones pull, you know, to each location.
So some of the like entry-level equipment that you'll find
for oral history or audio recorders or whatnot, they have
onboard microphones that in a lot cases are really nice
but in our environment right now
where we have to follow a social distancing guidelines
those might not be the best option.
So if you are forced to go in person
and thinking about what that looks like, you need to think
about investing into those microphones, obviously.
So you get enough distance there.
We've also had folks who have conducted interviews outdoors.
So you have a little bit more freedom outdoors
but of course, if you're going outdoors, you really, really
really want to find a quiet location for that.
Most of the outdoor interviews that we've had pre-pandemic
and then post are usually they're meeting
at a coffee spot or somewhere that they've agreed
upon to meet and have a conversation.
And some of those interviews are the hardest to transcribe
because there's noise going on everywhere.
But there are some options there for in-person if none
of these work, but let's assume that some of these work
for you and we'll come down here to our three major options.
So we have a landline phone option,
a cell phone option, and the web-based option.
So when we built these as part of the task force
we were looking to create these categories
within each option so that people have a sense
of not just what's out there, you know, that's free
or not just what what's out there that costs money
and give you the ability to compare
and contrast these options.
So starting with option one, landline phone.
And these are not by any means extensive.
We knew going into creating this resource that as soon
as we published this new things would pop up in the world.
So this shouldn't be all end all list
but we try to include as much
as possible within these three options for you to reference.
So for example, no extra costs, freeconferencecall.com
that's been around for awhile as a phone-based service
has a web-based platform now that you can set up
your accounts, set up your scheduling
basically the way it works is you're given a phone number
each participant calls into that phone number
and then you have the ability to record that conference call
or in this case, that interview
and then later that call that interview is made available
to you to download.
The most basic way to conduct
a landline interview is with a speaker phone turned on
whether it's one of you has a cell phone, or you're both
or on a landline that has speakerphone options on them.
We've had interviews conducted like this in the past.
One in particular sticks out to me
before the pandemic where the interviewee had a neck issue
and they really couldn't keep the phone
up to their head the whole time.
And so they decided to go, you could either go like
with a hands-free headset like I have right now
or they decided to go with speaker phone.
They put the audio recorder right next to the phone
obviously they're right next to the phone.
So their sound sounds great
but the sound from the other end sounds like
a phone/speaker phone conversation, obviously.
So those are your free options, extra cost options.
You have some equipment that you can purchase.
You have some adapters that go
alongside your audio recorders.
And so this is where we start getting
into things like looking at the full extent
of the options and the case studies.
So as you can see all of these options,
they have hyperlinks.
So if I open up option one here
it will open up the PDF for landline recordings.
So we've got introduction,
we've got general things to know things to consider
for landline, and then both the free and the paid.
Examples here we have tables created
where we have things like obviously costs
but also what file formats would you see with this?
How are files stored?
Do you need the internet where some other skills
or hardware that you might need to go along with this.
And then general pros cons additional information
here toward the bottom.
So all of these options that you see listed
on the decision tree page have
this wealth of information here.
In addition, if I go back to the decision tree where
you see these case studies pop up, these are also PDFs.
So I'm going to close a of these here.
So I actually wrote the case study for what's called
the JK audio quick tap, which is an adapter.
So if you already own an audio recorder, it's basically
the go between, between your landline phone
and your audio recorder.
So you have handset and phone on one side output
on the other, so that you can record a phone conversation
without having to like get speakerphone or things like that.
So this is a example of a case study I'll go through here.
So I gave a basic introduction about the fact
that we were already using the quick tap
for various projects that some students were using
but mainly they were also projects that our partners
were involved in and why we chose it.
And then I kind of took some screenshots here
and plugged them into the recording process,
kind of giving them a step-by-step process
of how the equipment actually works, how you connect it.
And then at the end, some final general advice as well.
And one of the things I always say about telephone
interviews is as hard to make a telephone interview
not sound like a telephone interview.
So I gave some examples of what that looks like.
So again, going back to that whole concept of if you can
wait, I do so.
Okay.
Option number two, cell phones.
So we have an in the case of a cell phone
we're talking about smartphones obviously.
And so we're talking about apps that you can access directly
on your phone, and let's see here.
Sorry, the Zoom overlays getting in my way now.
So I need to reposition here.
Okay.
So same situation here, but then we break it up
into Android and iOS and then we also have some hardware
options for cell phones.
So the JK audio device that I showed you that the case study
for, they also make devices for cell phones that connect
to cell phones and also make devices that connect
via Bluetooth to any sort of equipment like a cell phone
or a tablet or whatever that might use Bluetooth.
So kind of the same situation here.
And again, once we get into these options,
we realized so much of this material is for you
as the interviewer and not necessarily them
as the interviewee, that if it's a phone interview
they could be on the landline
they could be on the cell phone, but how you decide
to record that is kind of up to you,
whether you want to go landline whether you want to go
mobile and what's the best option for you.
And then of course the third option here
is the web based option.
And this is the most extensive option because this is where
things have blossomed, particularly since the pandemic.
And everyone usually has had exposure
to at least one of these.
But along with that comes because it's a video platform
because they're cloud-based platforms
additional security considerations of course.
We have a couple of different case studies here.
So our video conferencing options, we have Zoom listed,
we have Skype listed, Webex.
Some of you might be available or familiar with this
from an institutional standpoint.
And then there's their story, which is a new platform
that was just launched around the pandemic.
That is kind of new to most people
and it's built basically for oral history and in particular.
So we have the same options here for video.
But then as I said before, you also have some audio
only options for web platforms, such as QuadCast
or Zencastr again, these are mainly built
for podcasting recordings.
And so we have the specifics here
and then we also have a case study about
screen capture I think it is.
Screen capture options.
So this is something I want to make sure and point
out here as well.
So when we're talking about recording via your computer
there are also options in which you can simply
record whatever is going on on your screen and not
have to record natively in whatever program
you're using to connect.
And there are two options, whether you're on Mac
or PC that just comes standard.
And the operating systems of these platforms
it's QuickTime for Macs, it's called Xbox Game Bar for PC.
Don't let that fool you, you can use it for anything.
And basically what this does is allows you to pick a program
or pick a place on your screen, like create an area
on your screen in which you're actually recording the audio
and the video of whatever is happening
in that program on that screen.
And obviously one of the big things with these platforms
is it's always recording locally.
So you're not having to worry about where
those interviews are winding up.
It's always going to be locally recorded on your computer.
And some of these cases, though, these are creating probably
the larger files they're trying to record natively based
on what your screen resolution is and whatnot.
So that might be something to keep in mind as well
regarding just how large these files might be.
And of course, how much space is on your computer there.
Okay.
So let's see.
I think I lost my, if I go back.
Yes.
Okay.
So that's option number three.
So we have some additional considerations
over here when it comes to technology.
And then when it comes to the preservation process
for these interviews and each of these are again
breakouts of our overall narrative.
So I'll just work through the narrative at this point on.
So archival considerations
we reference our archiving best practices
I showed you earlier.
We talked about the context
of not only where is it initially stored
but then you have to also have to think
about how you're going to transfer files now
because most practiced oral historians, at least
in the digital age are used to having that recording
on that little SD card on their own recorder
and that might not be the case.
The other thing is we always
I always stress make sure you have your agreement
with your archive and all the details ready
from the outset for your oral history project
that's even more the case with a lot of these file types
and platforms that you'll be using for remote interviews.
So if you're creating video files, for example
and maybe you weren't planning
on doing that at the beginning of your project
make sure your archive is a cool with accepting video files
'cause they take a lot more space
in their preservation server and B they're okay
with whatever file formats you're recording
and or maybe they'll ask you to reformat it
before you send it along.
So again, a lot of this references
our archives best practice,
and we have some other links for it.
Compressed versus uncompressed.
Usually in oral history, especially for audio
we are pressing, pressing, pressing people
to use the WAV format for recording audio.
Unfortunately, in a lot of these remote environments
you're either not getting a WAV format recording for audio
or you are getting in WAV format
but it's reformatted from some other compressed format.
And so you're not getting that lovely uncompressed format
that we're used to for preservation services.
In general what the conversations
within the profession have been, just do your best.
If you have to do a remote interview, do your best,
look through all these options that we gave you
to see who is actually allowing you to record
in WAV, what bits sizes they are, whatnot.
If you're really interested
in getting as close to uncompressed as possible for audio.
And then of course, for video
we've never had fully uncompressed video
even in the best of situations
but it's even more compressed now in an online environment.
So these are things to consider as well.
And then I've already talked about the cloud
versus local file capture here.
Backup recordings, this is another big thing
about exactly what your procedure is going to look
like initially, because let's say you're using Zoom,
let's say you're using cloud-based Zoom recordings
those last only a certain amount
of time before they're deleted.
So you want to make sure you're going
in and getting those objects to begin with
and then you're following the good procedure of locks
lots of copies keeps stuff safe
and continuing your best practices as far
as your preservation protocols
especially in an online/cloud environment.
And then we actually created
a pretty extensive area here talking
about visual versus physical signatures,
as far as creating signatures for your deed of gifts
and getting all your legal T's crossed and I's dotted.
There are a lot of options
and we list several here for virtual signature forms.
Some of you have to pay for some are free.
If you want to go that route, we ourselves are
just emailing digital versions of our RDWFs.
They're signing it, they're scanning it.
They're sending it back to us.
Years ago we had already talked to our general counsel
and they said a digital sign form is just as good
as a written one.
So this is where I put my caveat
of make sure wherever you are, whoever you're working
with or your archives working with make sure everyone's
on the same legal page regarding this
but the business world has been doing this for a while now.
You know, I think my entire mortgage document
of papers that would normally be this high,
he signed everything.
So there are a lot of options out here
thankfully for this to help you along those lines.
So at the bottom here of this narrative
we have all the recording platform
PDF documents that you can link out to.
We have all the case studies
but then I wanted to also highlight
obviously the OHA is not the only one that has
been putting all these resources together.
We've got other organizations
throughout the country, in fact throughout the world
who have been working on this as well.
And so there are a good number of links here.
So the Folklife Center at the Library of Congress
for example, the Institute itself, we did a webinar.
They'll show you a link to here in a little bit.
We also had the British Library is a really great source.
And the Oral History Society out of the UK
is a great source for material.
And then we also provide a little bit of a bibliography here
of remote interviewing in times of crisis.
Now, a lot of what I'm talking about obviously is
because we're in a pandemic right now, but a lot
of the general remote interviewing concepts will still apply
if you're not able to travel, if you're not able
to meet even outside the pandemic, but while we're
in a pandemic or we find ourselves in another crisis
or your particular project has to deal with interviewing
either during a time of crisis or immediately afterwards
we decided to create this bibliography as well.
That there's a lot of articles and some cases books
or anthologies that you might want to read
through and then really consider it's some good background
material regarding to that.
So as you can see, it's pretty extensive there.
So with that I've pretty much walked
you through the entire suite.
I have a few last things to let you know about before
I'll open things up for questioning.
So the Institute, as I said, I'll start
with the webinars since I just talked about it.
So our website is baylor.edu/oralhistory.
And as you navigate our main page
I'll just go ahead and go to it.
Our main page, you'll see down
at the middle of some of these buttons here
some of the things I'll be talking about
one of them is workshops, and one
of them is resources and one of them is grant cycle.
So I'll just go ahead and click it.
So the oral history resources
we have some introduction manuals for you to download.
All of these are PDFs that you can download.
We have a transcription style guide that you can download,
but in particular, we have this remote interviewing webinar
that we did really early.
So this was at the end of March, March 31st, Adrienne Cain
who some of you have seen already
in this webinar platform, our director
Steven Sloan and I did a webinar kind of right
off the batch to try and get people acclimated.
This webinar was sponsored by the Oral History Association
and is fully available.
Is a two-hour webinar and a 30 minute Q&A
afterwards along with slideshows
and summaries and some other chat supplementals
here available for free to everyone.
If you'd like to a little deeper dive, there probably
be a little more like philosophical treatises in there,
a little more legal ethical treatises in there as well.
Then I was able to have time for today.
The second thing is we have workshops available.
In fact, this coming next week is the deadline
for two big things that we're doing at the Institute.
One is our getting started with oral history workshop.
It's our standard E workshop that we've been providing
at least twice a year for the past decade or more.
And this is a great way if you have no experience
with oral history and really want to get
into it, it's two, three hour sessions online with lots
of readings with actually homework assignments
to design your own project, to conduct your own interview.
You get evaluated with your first interview.
It's a great way to get into to the world of oral history.
It's a $100 covers everything
including our ongoing consultations
with you afterwards for your project.
So you can register online there.
And then the other opportunity I wanted to make sure
everybody was familiar with, it's our community
Oral History Grant.
So every other year we give a oral history grants
to a community in Texas that is looking to apply
oral history to research a particular topic
or to capture a certain number of memories.
And so we have up to $2,500 available
to individuals with this grant.
Think this is not today, but next Friday is the deadline.
Yeah, January 29th is the deadline for this grant.
So please, if you're a part
of a institution, community group,
friends of group, historical society, wherever you might be
that was thinking about doing an oral history project
I'm sure there's a lot of people thinking
about pandemic related or history projects.
Please give this a look.
There's a PDF document that's FAQ
and send in your application by next Friday.
Okay.
And so with that, I believe I am done.
- Fantastic.
Thank you so much, Steven.
That was wonderful.
And for those of you who are still here we have a few
minutes left for Q&A and we invite you to turn
on your cameras and either drop your questions into chat
or you're able to unmute yourself and ask your questions.
If you're comfortable, whatever works for you.
I have a question while you all are thinking
and actually since we're very close to the top of the hour
I do just want to mention
that this webinar is being recorded.
We're going to grab Steven's presentation links
and the links that were shared in chat.
We'll share all that stuff with you via email.
And so don't worry about scrambling
to capture all this info.
We'll share this with you soon.
I feel like every single component of what you just talked
about could be its own webinar in and of itself.
So it sounds like the two hour webinar
goes a lot more in depth.
I feel like we've just scratched the surface here today.
And one of the things I really appreciate is
just stressing all the care and preparation
it takes to be ready for any kind of oral history interview
but certainly with remote oral history interviews.
So here's a question I have.
I feel like this is going to be remote is going to only
exacerbate what it was already probably kind of hard
but can you give any tips for how to establish rapport
and trust with your interviewees when working remotely?
- Sure.
So I think first and foremost, which I'm hopefully hit
pretty hard early in my presentation
was the value of that pre-interview.
In a lot of cases these might be individuals
that we've only contacted via mail or email
probably more likely these days to set up an interview.
If you know the person great
this doesn't really apply to you.
But for most interviewees, it's going to be, that first time
that you can actually be face-to-face with them.
And so that's why that pre-interview is so important.
Not only so you can get through all of your laundry list
of things to do, which is, you know
to explain your project to have them on board
and signing deeds of gifts, maybe filling out
some data sheets and things like that.
But hopefully when you're doing that and especially
in a remote environment, like on Zoom doing that
hopefully I'm getting a chance right away
to establish some rapport with them.
And it's okay to go ahead and something
like ask them some questions that you might end
up asking in the official interview later,
just so that you can learn a little bit more
about them and begin that process.
In particular when it comes to the interview itself
usually when we give workshops
on interviewing technique, we say, usually start
with something that's easy for your interviewee
and something that's familiar with them.
And if you know them a little bit
something that they like talking about,
so that as you start to get into the interview
and you get them at ease, you get them talking
it's something that they they're not struggling
with or whatnot, that not only helps them settle
into the interview but it helps the two of you
because hopefully again it's something
they like talking about.
So those are the two main points, I guess I would say.
And again, that can be once we're back into the real world
so to speak, those could be applicable
with an in-person interview.
If you go and visit them, if you have that ability.
But I think this is a great moment for us to consider
maybe we didn't, maybe if we have to travel a little bit
and because of that, we didn't do a pre-interview before
but now that we have all these great tools
at our disposal to be able to see each other and conduct
that maybe that's the new pathway that we see
in the oral history and that we're actually
conducting pre-interviews on Zoom or something.
But then when the time comes to actually set
up the nice equipment and be in the same room with them
we're traveling for the interview.
- True, there's so many positive side effects actually
of being so accustomed now to remote.
So I could see that especially
if a digital divide wasn't an issue.
And I do appreciate that your workflow did accommodate
that because we do see that especially
in rural communities and with some elderly folks.
My 75 year old mom has a Zoom account
but we're just going to leave it at that for now.
I did not see any more questions come through chat.
And so I really do want to encourage everyone
to register for their workshop coming up.
Great, great, Michael.
- That's what we like to see.
Haven't decided on virtual or not yet
but the conference will be in September and then
I'm the editor of our journal, The Sound Historian.
So as you get into things
or those of you who have projects
and want to maybe write a little something about them
or learn more about how other people are handling
especially smaller mid-range projects or whatever
there's that publication as well.
So this is hopefully one of the outputs.
So I've got a lot of hats right now.
I've got OHA and a Baylor hat.
And so this is my TOHA hat I'm wearing right now.
(laughs)
So yes.
So we look forward just to seeing many more of you
join us for TOHA.
- I do have one really very timely and interesting question
that came in through direct message.
And the question is basically
about a hybrid remote and in-person interview.
And this person had asked
they're going to be co-hosting an oral history
they'll be remote while their collaborator will be
in the room with the participant or interviewee.
Do you have any suggestions?
- So what role are they playing then?
Are they recording?
I'll just take it from here.
So there are some situations like
University of Columbia case studies
they talk about how they have a facilitator.
So the facilitator helps connect interviewer to interviewee
make sure that all the equipment's working properly
that the sound levels seem okay.
And in some cases that facilitator can actually
be the person who's doing the recording as well.
Now this obviously would be all on Zoom.
So my question I guess would be if someone's on Zoom
or on the online platform and there's people
in person I'm not not quite sure what the setup
would be there or how that would work.
But they're welcome to email me
and ask further questions about that.
But yes, there are some of those cases
and we here at the Institute, so we just built
our new recording studio last year.
And so we've got remote Zoom set up there
in the recording studio.
And so in addition to the new Zoom forum, I talked
about that to create a new Zoom protocol,
as far as how we basically sign onto the computer.
We have all of our levels set up.
We have all the equipment set up and individuals
can actually come.
These are mainly students, can come in, connect with whoever
they need to interview wherever the world
they are and conduct the interview within our own studio.
And then of course we have at least on their end
the quality audio and sound gear and video gear,
there for one side of the interview.
And then we have our processes for capturing that recording
and getting that recording right into our workflows.
So there's a lot to be said for facilitation as far
as that's concerned.
But each particular situation will be
a little different I'm sure.
- That's it from questions from the audience.
I feel like we could probably talk all day, but it's kind
of getting close to lunchtime and I'm getting kind
of hungry, but I did want to just thank you again, Steven
and all the folks at Texas Oral History Association
and the folks up at Baylor with the Institute
for Oral History.
This is just very exciting
and I feel like every single time I talk to you
I learn a ton or it's like, I learn all the things
like I had never even thought of.
And it's just very, I appreciate you sharing your expertise
and allowing us to lean on your expertise
and share it with others.
- Well, we appreciate the invite.
We're happy to be a part
of this family and be a part of this series.
And as I said, everyone's welcome to email me
or check in with TOHA, check in with Adrienne or I about
everything that we do.
And we would very much look forward
to seeing you either virtually
or in person in September for our conference.
- Awesome fingers crossed
for the in-person and thanks everyone
and hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.
And Steven will catch up with you later.
- Absolutely. - Have a good one.
- Have a great weekend.