ORAL HISTORY - Guide for Volunteer Interviewers 2008
Oral history is a fascinating and important aspect of the scholarly process. It provides a valuable supplement to the evidence found in written sources, in books, case reports and archives, and often greatly enlivens legal history. While most of the Osgoode Society’s oral history interviews are conducted by people who do this work regularly, from time to time the Society uses volunteer interviewers.
The volunteer interviewer is invariably someone who knows the person being interviewed. Assuming you have been asked to be an interviewer for the Osgoode Society, or that you are considering doing so because you know someone you think would be a good subject for an interview, here are some tips about the oral history interview process.
Getting Started
You should be clear from the outset what the scope of the project is. Is the Osgoode Society interested in the whole of the person’s life, or just one period of time? Similarly, is it interested in personal and biographical information as well as reflections on the cases the lawyer or judge was involved in? These and other questions can be answered by talking to the Administrator of the Osgoode Society at 416-947-3321.
Interviewer’s Qualifications and Research
An interviewer need not have legal training, but some research background is helpful. Good research and preparation make for a better interview. Volunteer interviewers usually know the person being interviewed, but it is nonetheless useful to ask for and peruse a resumé before you start, to look up the person in publications like Who’s Who in Canada and/or legal directories, or just to search for them on the internet There are a number of subject-specific “Who’s Whos”. You may want to get hold of the principal cases they have been involved in; the Osgoode Society can help you do that.
The Question Schedule
It is a good idea to prepare and have a question schedule (based on the research) to hand when starting the interview. The interview is conducted as a business appointment of no more than two hours in length. A question schedule helps to drive the process efficiently and make it more effective; it helps to minimize repetition and serves as the interviewer’s guide, indicating, as each area is ticked off, what has been covered and what has yet to be covered. This schedule allows for asking questions suitable for the subject and the particular career being explored. There should be enough space between questions for the interviewer to jot notes, comments, any other data deemed
necessary for follow-up at a later interview.
It is useful to email the questions you have prepared ahead of time to the subject, but only do this if they ask. You can find out if they are interested in seeing the full schedule in a pre-interview phone call or conversation. Some people only want a rough guide to what you plan to cover in each interview, and are intimidated by the large question schedule....
Standard Questions
Interviews should start with a few standard questions that allow the subject to get comfortable with the interviewer. Even if the interviewer knows the subject, the two people will not have interacted in this way before, and the eventual user of the interview, a legal historian, will find this information useful. So start with generic questions such as: full name, date and place of birth, early education, university (place, subject studied, involvement in extra curricular activities), summer jobs or career before entering law school, reason for deciding to study law, law school chosen, law school details re courses, colleagues, professors, experiences, articles served and that experience, date of admission to the Bar, nature of law practice, promotion to partner or to the bench, moving law firms.
Depending on the scope of the interview, the interviewer can then delve more deeply into other matters. If the interview is for the purpose of exploring a career in the practice of law, for example, he or she can be asked about particular cases, anecdotes, office culture, colleagues, courts and tribunals appeared in, judges appeared before, specialization, major accomplishments in career, contributions to community; major disappointments.
During this process some people will volunteer a lot of information about their personal lives outside the legal career. Others are very private. Unless the Oral History Committee of the Osgoode Society has requested that extensive personal information be pursued, respect the wishes of the subject. If personal aspects of the person’s life are to be explored, it is wise to mention this in verbal discussion with the subject beforehand.
What You Need to Take to the Interview
Take two recorders, one as spare in case of mechanical failure. The tape recorders are provided by the Osgoode Society.
Take three or four 60- minute tapes. Depending on type of recorder, these should be Maxell tapes, approved and provided by the Osgoode Society according to guidelines established by the Archives of Ontario.
Take extra batteries.
Make sure you have paper on which to jot notes.
Your question schedule!
Your research file on the subject, if you have one. This need not be extensive, but basic information about names, dates, cases that you wish to ask about is important to have with you as an aide memoire.
The Interview Process
The first stage is that a letter is sent from the Administrator of the Osgoode Society to the subject outlining the project, describing the interview process, and advising that you will call. It is the job of the interviewer to set up the schedule, so about ten day to two weeks after the letter has been sent, telephone the subject or his/her assistant and try to establish a date for the first interview. This sometimes takes time; biographical interviews are low on many people’s priority lists.
You may ask that a resumé be forwarded to you ahead of the interview but some subjects prefer to meet you first before giving this information. In your initial call you should ascertain what the time parameters are; some interviews occur in one-hour segments. Ideally you should ask for two consecutive hours (but rarely more). A massive amount of information can be elicited in two hours.
While two-hour segments are ideal and you should not go beyond that if you are interviewing someone “locally” to you, this guideline can and probably should be exceeded when you are working out of town. You may well want not to have to stay around for days, so it makes sense to do a 2-hour slot in the morning and another in the afternoon.
It is useful to email the questions you have prepared ahead of time to the subject. Check first to see if they use e-mail (many older people still do not). If they don’t, email them to an assistant or mail them.
Normally professional dress is appropriate for the interviewer, even if the interview is in the subject’s home. But a volunteer guide may know the person being interviewed well enough to dispense with this; use your good judgment.
Be punctual, which of course means a little early if going to an office. This allows you to be screened and escorted to chambers if the interview is to take place in a courthouse or large law firm. If the interview is to take place in a private home, arrive a bit early and walk around outside rather than be late. If for any reason you are delayed, call the subject and alert them as soon as possible.
Interviews are best conducted in an office or home office or study - in a quiet one-on-one setting. Kitchens are often chosen as interview sites because of access to coffee, water, good light and large tables. The subjects often have extensive materials to hand to which they refer. Occasionally, if the subject is ill, a partner or care worker will sit in on the interview. They just listen.
Some subjects, especially former politicians, will tape you as you tape them. This should not pose a problem.
When you are in the interview and have set up, but before tuning on the recorder, ask if the subject has any questions about the process; they invariably do. You should explain your plan of approach and what you expect the interview might accomplish in the time.
Avoid interrupting the subject. Sometimes a long pause is just that and it is tempting to fill the space with a question. It can be difficult on occasion to judge when to move to the next topic - the subject appears to have finished or ‘dried up’ so you move on, only to be rebuked for moving on too soon. At other times subjects interject data pertaining to other periods/subjects of their life at variance with the question on the table. Ignore this. It can be captured/unified by a very detailed contents page.
Never overstay unless the subject expressly asks you to add on time so that all might be finished in one interview. Both interviewers and subjects tire and tend to lose acuity after two intense hours.
After an hour either you or the subject might wish a 5-minute break. It is acceptable to ask for one, if needed.
Taping
Good record-keeping is crucial. Name and date your tape: e.g. ‘first interview of X for the Osgoode Society (name of project), tape 1, side A, date, your name as interviewer’. Each subsequent side of the tape should say name of subject, date, tape and side number. This is critical for the transcriber.
This initial information can be recorded before the interview, but you should always test the recorder in the interview, checking it for sound transmission by asking the subject to say a few words. Some subjects are very soft spoken and the recorder requires considerable adjustment to pick them up. Very soft-spoken subjects may have to be prodded to speak directly into the recorder.
When you are interviewing in downtown Toronto you should be aware of a rather strange phenomenon. Tape recorders can and often do pick up and record directly the radio waves that come from the CN Tower! This is not a problem if the tape ends up with soft classical music on it as background. But if it records the news or some other ‘talking show,’ it can be hard to transcribe afterwards. So part of your checking process should be to check to see what, if anything, the recorder is picking up from the Tower. If there is a lot of background noise, try moving to another location.
Jot down the time the tape starts and listen for it to finish; retest the second side. Occasionally a tape will malfunction; one side will work, the other will not. This is rare but should be checked.
Interruptions can occur, although most subjects turn off the telephone and ignore knocking at the door and focus on the interview. On occasion, however, you will get many interruptions. When these occur, turn off the tape and volunteer to step outside. Usually the calls are short, often expected, but they do disrupt thought processes so a certain amount of back tracking may be required. Do not forget to turn the recorder back on again!
Turn off the recorder if interviewer requests it - to ask a clarifying question, or discuss something off tape. Again, do not forget to turn it back on again!
After An Interview
After your first interview, determine if a second is needed and the process to arrange it. At this point it will be clear what the subjects of the second interview will be, so you might prepare for that, as will the subject.
When you deem the interviews to be completed, thank the subject but leave the door open for a final follow-up interview after the edit process has been completed. Occasionally gaps, which must be filled, become evident, necessitating a follow-up interview.
Transcribing
When interviews are complete, give the tapes to the administrator of the Osgoode Society. In due course you will get a transcript to edit and for which we would also ask you to prepare a Contents page. Edit your own questions stringently and the answers lightly, eliminating only egregious grammatical errors, excessive repetition of ‘verbal tics’ (‘sort of’, ‘you know’). Edit on paper, and return the transcript to the administrator who will input your changes.
The transcript is then sent to the subject for editing along with the appropriate documents for confidentiality, release of access, storage etc
Pitfalls To Avoid
Avoid impatience if things take longer than you expected - be flexible and maintain your sense of humour.
Generally - expected the unexpected and remain sensible and adaptable.
