New Tool Could Help Researchers Make Better Use of Oral Histories

July 7, 2011, 11:07 am

I called up an old high-school friend the other day, Doug Boyd, an oral historian at the University of Kentucky, to talk about the growing popularity of oral histories in sports. I’m thinking of the 770-page bestseller, Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN (Little, Brown), which I’m finally delving into this week. Sports Illustrated also just did an oral-history-style piece, and Leigh Montville, one of my all-time favorites, may have started the trend with his entertaining biography of Ted Williams.

Turns out Doug had something even more interesting to tell me about. Through his work as director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, he’s developed a method for indexing audio and video recordings, making it easy for researchers to call up precise words without having to listen to endless hours of tape.

Within the next year, Boyd’s center hopes to make its search tool, an open-source software solution, available free to other libraries. He has applied for a National Leadership Grant through the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The grant would help his search software work with popular content-management systems on other campuses, including CONTENTdm, which many universities use to host their digital archives.

Included in the Nunn Center’s collection of 8,000 interviews is an extensive oral history of the desegregation of Major League Baseball, told through dozens of interviews with Albert Benjamin (Happy) Chandler, a former baseball commissioner and Kentucky governor, as well as players and others from the era.

The center also did 40 hours of interviews with William B. Keightley (aka “Mr. Wildcat”), a beloved former equipment manager for the men’s basketball team, who shared stories of working under the legendary Adolph Rupp and seeing three national championships during his 40-year tenure. Those interviews have been digitized, and the athletic department features Keightley clips at home basketball games.

Fans can go to the Keightley section of the center’s website, type in a player’s name or moment in recent UK basketball history, and up pops a transcript and audio clips where Keightley mentions the words. (Curiously, there are no matches for “Laettner.”)

Boyd, who previously worked at the University of Alabama as its library’s head of digitization, recently consulted on a project at the Bear Bryant Museum helping to preserve film footage back to the 1930s.

His latest project at Kentucky involves interviewing student veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. “It’s pretty stunning,” he says, “looking at how oral history can actually enhance a veteran’s reintegration into society and higher education.”

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mlhodge

Student loans DO cover summer school classes; that’s how I paid for my first summer of graduate school in 2009.
butteredtoastcat

Muleprof,

I’ll make you a deal: I’ll stop “threatening” you and your tenured buddies if you find me a job outside of academics paying what yours does and having the same benefits. However, if you stay in your tower, merely farting in our general direction, then we adjuncts have the right to take you down.

The Adjunct Mafia
butteredtoastcat

The problem is that Mule Prof has been blessed but thinks he is the one performing the miracles. This allows him to see adjuncts as undeserving by definition.
dld18

I agree that if adjuncts (and I am one) feel they are being abused, they can seek different employment. However, Muleprof seems to suggest that the departure of some adjuncts will impact the system that supports the use (and abuse?) of contingent faculty. In fact, if Muleprof and other tenured faculty desire change in the academy (i.e., the reduction of the use of adjuncts) then they should use the power they have to implement change. Surely, the adjuncts do not have that power.
czander

When I was a full time faculty member I had to teach at other institutions to make ends meet. Now I’m retired with a pension and SS and guess what? I still teach at other institutions to make ends meet. My heart goes out to adjuncts. Their adjunct income ought to be supplemental pay.
This deplorable situation is a function of a deplorable business model academic presidents have adopted.
Read: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Creative-Destruction-The-d-by-william-czander-110228-297.html
adjunctcarol

Issaac, you have again summarized the situation well.
This isn’t a fight between FT and Adjunct. Folks we are in it together! The more teachers fight, the less they can work together to address the issue. In-fighting is a valuable situation for administration.

No word seems to fit those non-TT. Ever look up the official meaning of adjunct?… inconsequential add-on…
adjunctcarol

13 years. Oh so temporary, considering the history of the world maybe.

Each quarter:
I agreed to the amount of hours
I agreed to the amont of pay,
But I still demand respect
Each and every day.

Work toward the respect. Big ways, small items.
big_giant_head

…but how, exactly, is it wrong?
anonytrans

“I am continually astonished by adjuncts: It’s a situation akin to
renting a rattrap apartment, or living with an abusive boyfriend–you
don’t own it, you’re not married, so why not walk away?”

What a great analogy. Of course, we all know no one lives in an apartment they don’t like because they can’t afford to move, and certainly no one stays in a relationship with someone who abuses them for any reason. If they don’t manage to get out of a bad situation, clearly its their own fault. Better to just make the leap and assume everything will work out – I mean, homelessness and violent stalking aren’t *that* bad… plus if the new situation doesn’t work out, they can just walk away from the cardboard box they’re living in or kids they can’t afford to support.

Great advice – it really is that simple!
bigghostdini_tha_don

There are a lot of grouchy old haters on the discussion forum… funny that they all probably advocate socialism in real life but behind the anonymity of the Internet they tell exploited workers to suffer-in-silence or quit.
anpadh

Muleprof is disingenuous. The issue, really, is not whether adjuncts (or anyone else) has other options. The issue is the treatment of anyone who, at any moment, for any reason, IS currently an adjunct. Whether you’ve been an adjunct for one semester or one decade is irrelevant. Even in the case of the abusive partner and the bad apartment, the issue is not whether you can swap one (partner or apartment) for another one.

Muleprof is right when he says that the system is not going to change JUST because people complain about it. That is, however, a half-truth. Complaints are the harbinger of change. It is impossible to overthrow an entire system overnight. What would happen if all of the adjuncts magically went off the market? Nothing. The full-timers would get a greater load. Those adjuncts who found alternative jobs would be flooding the job-market in those sectors. Teachers can only apply in certain market-sectors. The range is not infinite.

What adjuncts need to do is to unionize so they can get fair (and rational) pay, along with benefits. Quitting their jobs will only take them from one unsatisfactory situation to another. Another option (or an additional one) is to end tenure. Let the full-timers compete for their jobs each semester as the adjuncts do, with the difference that they would stand to lose their full-time status and salary on a semester-to-semester basis. Not all adjuncts are part-timers. There are several Temporary Full-Time teachers — adjuncts who are given full-time status for a few months. Why not make ALL full-time teachers Temporary Full-Time? That would give Muleprof a taste of his/her own medicine — one that he/she probably won’t like at all!
adjunctcarol

In our department: 2 FT/TT and 4 adjuncts who teach one class shy of FT. Add in overloads and we consistently teach enough sections for 6 FT/TT. Isn’t it nice to have adjuncts that are good enough for TT, dependable, professional, provide other services for the students and college for free, and train each other since they are stuck in offices together but get paid less and hired by the quarter? Our FT are supportive overall!
amsterdamup

I fully agree with Esposito’s reaction: where does the money come from in an Open Access environment? To our opinion, the guiding principles for scholarly communication should be: 1. research and the dissemination of results belong together. 2. Funders’ OA policies should include OA publishing and 3. publishers should develop OA publishing as a service to the scholarly community. This last principle is already evolving in the STM journals/articles world, where an author can chose for OA after his/her publication is accepted through peer-review, if he/she pays for it up front. This ‘authors pay system’ used in STM for the publication of journals and articles should also be introduced in the HSS, where the monograph is the most common way of disseminating the results of the research. Special attention is recommended for Open Access for scholarly monographs, in particular in relation to the Humanities and Social Sciences. There is a clear need for Open Access publishing and funding models for monographs to bridge the gap with OA articles, but also because the traditional business model for books is losing its sustainability. Finally, not the author, but the funders of research should take care of the costs for the Open Access edition as the dissemination of research should be seen as part of the research, but also because they are already taking care of most of the costs of scientific publications through the library budgets. This is the way our major scientific funding organisation NWO looks at it since 2009, and I believe it is also the way the EU is moving. Amsterdam University Press/ Saskia C.J. de Vries
Finally, not the author, but the funders of research should take care of the costs for the Open Access edition as the dissemination of research should be seen as part of the research, but also because they are already taking care of most of the costs of scientific publications through the library budgets. This is the way our major scientific funding organisation NWO looks at it since 2009, and I believe it is also the way the EU is moving. Amsterdam University Press/ Saskia C.J. de Vries
missoularedhead

You’d think 8 years of bar/restaurant experience, including management, all thru grad school would count as the ‘right skill set’!
sikunlun

A lot of the interviews in the Kentucky collection were done by Mr. William Marshall, who cited many of them in his award-winning book _Baseball’s Pivotal Era, 1945-51_ (Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1999).

University at Buffalo historian Mike Frisch, who has worked in the field of oral history for many years, has a small company that works on indexing audio and video materials, Randforce (http://www.randforce.com/).

Given the Laettner reference, I thought I’d bring Buffalo (Laettner’s hometown) and Lexington (most concentrated zone of Laettner-haters) together….
solidagojuncea

Federal mining laws will probably allow Mr. Loomis to lease mineral rights under the sculpture and wipe it out in his search for more coal.
dmoser5

FULL DISCLOSURE (Sort of . . .) — I have a close affiliation with Pronghorn University (I say that tongue-in-cheek because there are more pronghorn antelopes in the area than students, total. Yes, we see them in town on the way to the local Big Box Store).

First up, I have serious concerns about the leap of faith that is being made to connect the mountain pine bark beetle infestation that is inexorably devastating the surrounding forests here with the coal industry that admittedly does provide much to the economy of the state. Quite simply, either Chris Drury has been misquoted or misinformed (he could have come to my office; we spent the last year helping with a project by one of the University’s Bristol Scholar’s—he did a photo-reportage, with audio interviews, of the people bearing the impact of the pine beetle infestation and nary a lump of coal insight).
Second, I am deeply saddened to see the rush to judgement on the part of the Wyoming Mining Association in their condemnation of this project. @chronicle-3d4cf264a045538cf252e719e74b68f5:disqus has nailed it quite well in saying that this is an opportunity for debate and education, all the way around (especially if I am right about #1 above!).This campus desperately needs such opportunities for open debate; we have learned nothing from the debacle here last year if we do not take this one.

Or perhaps Peter Garrett was right after all and “And nothing’s as precious, as a hole in the ground . . .”
thedoctorisin

The problem I see here is that the sculpture is permanent and therefore the anti-mining statement will endure for generations. Even if this could be turned into a “learning moment,” the Wyoming Mining Association can make its defense but one time.
lexalexander

I like the idea of constructive debate around the issue and, to the extent that the university community and the taxpayers of Wyoming care what I think, I strongly encourage that debate.

That said, if Mr. Loomis truly understood academic freedom, he wouldn’t have brought up his association’s financial support of the university in raising his objections, and it is disingenuous for anyone to claim otherwise.
thedoctorisin

I don’t buy your premise regarding academic freedom. It does not mean you can ride roughshod over opposing viewpoints. It appears that Chris Drury was made aware of several facts regarding the pine beetle epidemic and chose to ignore them. Academic freedom requires intellectual honesty.
lexalexander

I agree, and I did not intend to imply that Drury was blameless or that his positions should go unchallenged if there is a factual basis for challenging them. I’m simply saying that by bringing financial support into the conversation, Mr. Loomis weakened his own position.
akprof

Athletic depts often have their own websites because they sell things – hence they have to have .com websites rather than .edu websites.
mbelvadi

This list was going well until we hit #9. From the answer given, “…most try to ensure..at least some…” it is clear that in fact this “myth” is quite true that other aid is indeed “reduced” at least somewhat. It’s too bad that authors of lists seem to think that every interesting list of anything has to have exactly 10 entries (“the top ten xyz”), even if you don’t really have 10 of your topic.
raza_khan

I am not sure what was the purpose of the article when the “scholarship” is broadly defined…. Are we talking about academic merit based scholarship? Of course then prom outfit out of duct tape would not qualify!!! Are we talking about scholarship for certain majors? atheletic based scholarship? So, first, the kinds of scholarships neeed to be defined and then myths taken out of those scholarships… So if I can get a merit based scholarship for coming up with best prom dress out of duct tape, I am all ears!!!

Raza

__________________________

Dr. Raza Khan

Dr.Raza.Khan@gmail.com
dpn33

Hey, OldNassau’67, even Princeton University Athletics has its own website, and they are hardly a sports powerhouse. I’m not quite sure why that last sentence is even there. It’s irrelevant.

This whole article comes off as an extended ad for Mr. Kantrowitz’s website.
texasmusic

I think the purpose of the article was to say there are many kinds of scholarships available (yes, even the kind where someone contributes to your tuition when you submit a winning duct-tape prom dress design). This is typical of the kinds of articles you see about this time of year, when high school seniors are starting to get serious about college. It encourages people to get creative and not to assume they’re out of luck before they even begin.
texasmusic

And on that note – I was really hoping for some good news with number 6: that scholarships are not just for high school seniors. Evidently they’re just for high school seniors and younger, and maybe some college freshmen. I was really hoping to hear about a “starting-over” scholarship for the non-traditional adult students.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000421945279 Fe Fo

Scholarship are not only merit based, but having a good GPA and academic background is a must to getting in school and paying for it. However, you don’t have to be a 3.0-4.0 student to receive a scholarship. I received several scholarships during my undergraduate and kept a 2.5. to maintain them. I think some people also over think academics, if you are a well rounded student; involved in school activities, sports and so on, it also make you look like a better candidate because you have to posse structure to be involved with school activities. Some of these people comments below are broken down by what the article said, however, I still agree with most of their tips and don’t think their is one straight narrow path to getting and keeping a scholarship And I have worked in financial aid and scholarship for seven years.
hhopf

oldnassau67, not all athletic scholarships go to football players, and the list is correct that most athletes do not get a “full ride.” At my institution, many of the women’s athletic scholarships go unfilled, because the athletes choose to accept instead an academic scholarship (from the institution as well) that covers more of their educational costs. And our athletes (as is the norm) as a group have a higher GPA than that of the overall student body.
darccity

These are not the important myths about scholarships. The real myth is that outside scholarship money is even an appreciable fraction of all financial assistance! It definitely is not! Parents need to stop pressuring their teens to spend any time searching out and applying for scholarships. It prevents them from achieving the grades and doing the extracurric activities that will earn them the real aid to the places they want to get into.

The primary source of financial aid is when the college itself offers you a price reduction in its full-price sticker tuition rate. Increasingly, the basis for such aid is student quality or particular needs of the college to balance its incoming class. My daughter was once offered a huge amount to attend Sarah Lawrence — a college noted for low financial aid offers — because they wanted her badly (and it wasn’t because of her class standing). On the other hand, needs based aid is declining rapidly.

Now the other big myth is that student loans is financial aid. Can you imagine a slimy used car dealer telling you he’ll get you financial aid, and it turns out to be a loan?! Only colleges can get away with such double speak.
mkant69

The popularity of top ten lists may have more to do with alliteration (both top and ten begin with the letter T) and ten being a small number than anything else. Top twelve, top two, and top three are popular for similar reasons. People do not necessarily pad the list with additional items to get to ten. They might use a different number and just omit the word “top”. In this particular case a 20-minute time limit for the talk required cutting the number of myths to 10.