Level 4 Oral History Examples

Examples are from Documenting the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and from the California Digital Library

Compiled by Natasha Smith and Merrilee Proffitt

Example 1

Participant List in the Header

<profileDesc>
        <particDesc default="NO">
            <p>
               <list type="simple">
                  <head>Participants to the interview include:</head>
                  <item>Interviewer/editor: <name id="fry">Amelia Fry</name>
                  </item>
                  <item>Interviewee: <name id="field">Sara Bard Field</name>
                  </item>
                  <item>Interviewer: <name id="brophy">Father Robert Brophy</name>
                  </item>
                  <item>Interviewer: <name id="gilb">Corinne Gilb</name>
                  </item>
			...
		</list>
              </p>
	</particDesc>
			...
</profileDesc>
Questions and answers from interviewees and interviewers are encoded as <sp>, with speakers identified within <speaker> elements.

Encoded Text Corresponding to Participant List IDS

                  <sp who="fry">
                     <speaker>Fry</speaker>
                     <p>Are you talking about both the ERA and the suffrage?</p>
                  </sp>
                  <sp who="paul">
                     <speaker>Paul</speaker>
                     <p>Now, I am talking about the suffrage. That's the reason <pb id="p304" n="304"/> 
we were doing that, just <hi rend="italic">publicly </hi>. Like the time when we sent down two women from 
each congressional district. It was no secret lobbying. It was just very publicly staged, while the paid lobbyist, the 
professional lobbyist, it's more secret, you know. More hidden and concealed, people denying that they 
<hi rend="italic">are </hi>lobbyists and all that sort of thing.</p>
                  </sp>

Oral histories can be arranged so that the primary access to the intellectual content is reflected in chapter titles, subheads, etc. or can be arranged so that the primary access to the content is given by interview dates, a tape guide, etc. The primary access to intellectual content should be reflected using DIVs. If a table of contents is accompanied by interview or tape change indications, these should be encoded as milestones.

		<milestone n="Tape 1, Side B" unit="tape"/>

Example 2

Participant List in the Header

<fileDesc>
	<titleStmt>
	    	<author>
                	<name id="cmb" reg="Cavenaugh, Mattie Bell" type="interviewee">Cavenaugh, Mattie
                        Bell (b. 1926)</name>, interviewee </author>
                <author>
                    	<name id="ce" reg="Cavenaugh, Earl" type="interviewee">Cavenaugh, Earl (b.
                    1919)</name>, interviewee </author>
                <author>
                    	<name id="ca" reg="Cavenaugh, Artis" type="interviewee">Cavenaugh, Artis</name>,
                    interviewee </author>
                <author>
                    	<name id="ct" reg="Cavenaugh, Thomas" type="interviewee">Cavenaugh,
                    Thomas</name>, interviewee </author>
                <author>
                    	<name id="eb" reg="Easter, Betsy" type="interviewee">Easter, Betsy</name>,
	                    interviewee </author>
	</titleStmt>
</fileDesc>

Encoded Text Corresponding to Participant List IDS

<sp who="spk3">
     <speaker n="3">BETSY EASTER:</speaker>
           <p>So all of the Ladies Auxiliary papers are gone. 
		<note type="comment"><p>[Phone conversation distruption]</p></note>
           </p>
</sp>

		or

<sp who="spk2">
       <speaker n="2">KATHLEEN BRATTEN:</speaker>
           <p> Well, actually, we finally graduated to a gas burner. 
		<note type="comment"><p>[Laughs].</p></note>
           </p>
</sp>