7. Some methodological considerations

The design of a recording programme and the construction of individual projects require a measure of methodological as well as subject judgement. Planning must include a process of assessment that should be based on practical experience of how oral history works best as a research method and an archival collecting technique. Obviously, this standard of judgement can only be provided by historians who have used oral history methods and have a good understanding of their nature and also of their limitations.

Oral history is now well enough established in many countries for methodological advice to be readily available. However, the selection of an adviser may present greater problems than the choice of subject specialists. For approaches to oral history vary not only between countries, but also within them. For some practitioners oral history is academically research directed; for others it is more archivally or broadly based; some oral historians see the value of the information collected as being directly related to the proximity of the recording with the events it describes; while others hold to the belief that the oral tradition communicates accurate and valid data across decades or even centuries. Such differences illustrate the range of approach and account for varying practices. It follows that a suitable adviser must be carefully chosen on the basis of the needs, purposes and functions of the archive in which the new programme is to be established. Therefore, selection may need to follow a survey of the aims and methods of other oral history practitioners or established recording programmes.

In cases where a methodological adviser is not locally available it may simply not be possible to establish a programme on a broad front in the short term. To do so would be at the probable cost of producing poor quality results at considerable expense. In these areas, programmes are best developed gradually, allowing skills to grow out of practical experience based on small projects with limited objectives. By encouraging and nurturing the development of local expertise, acquired from individual recording projects that are feasible in the short term, the quantity and range of work can be expanded into a coordinated programme at a later appropriate time.

Whether for individual projects or for broadly based recording programmes, some general questions should also be applied to test the practicability of any oral history research under consideration. For example:

Since oral history is dependent for worthwhile results on individual memory, is the subject proposed likely to be amenable to this fallible human faculty? Generally those subjects work best which are concerned with patterns of activity as opposed to single incidents that require precise factual recall.

Are the people available to be recorded sufficient in the number or categories required to cover satisfactorily the subject which is proposed? Here the more distant in time the events and the more complex their structure then the more difficult it may be to locate informants and to document the proposed subject satisfactorily.

Does the proposed project depend on key individuals and are they available and sufficiently articulate and reliable to provide the kind of information that is required?

Is the chronological span to be covered or the range of information to be sought practically manageable within the format of an interviewing project? In general, the objectives of any individual recording project are best limited in scale to a period and a subject range which can be conveniently managed and within which results can be clearly assessed.

How sensitive or controversial is the subject of the proposed project and would informants be likely to talk openly and at length on the matters involved? It would obviously be unwise and unprofitable to invest resources in areas where self-censoring could be expected to be a major problem.

How well documented by other kinds of records is the subject of the proposed project? If the project is unlikely to add much new documentation to the existing records, it would hardly merit a large investment or a high priority.

By the application of these kinds of questions and by taking the best available methodological (and subject) advice the most appropriate content and construction for an archive recording programme may be formulated.