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Donald A. Ritchie is Associate Historian in the United States
Senate Historical Office, where he conducts an oral history
program. A former president of the Oral History Association, he has
served on the council of the American Historical Association, and
chaired the Organization of American Historians' committee on
research and access to historical documentation. He has conducted
many oral history workshops, and for ten years, he edited the
Twayne
oral history series.
"A comprehensive handbook on the theory, methods, and practice of
oral history, based on work by the Oral History Association to
revise its professional standards and principles." --Book News,
Inc. (on a previous edition)
"Donald Ritchie...has produced an invaluable manual that will serve
research scholars and teachers equally well. ... Without
pretension, Doing Oral History fulfills the promise touted on the
jacket cover: to provide 'practical advice and reasonable
explanations for anyone.' ... [A] significant contribution to
making oral history accessible to a wide audience of potential
users." --The History Teacher
"Written in a friendly question-and-answer format, this book gives
advice for preparing, setting up, and conducting an interview. ...
Ritchie's step-by-step guide will help you preserve your family's
experiences for generations to come." --Family Tree
"Ritchie has laid out the fundamentals to guide novices and given
long-term practitioners material that will help them re-evaluate
their own approaches. This book needs to be on every oral
historian's shelf." --Northwest Oral History Association
"This book is not a dustcatcher. It is destined to be dog-eared and
full of underlined passages, from the first time you pick it up. In
a user-friendly question-and-answer format, much like an oral
history interview, Don Ritchie has packed into one modest volume
enough practical advice to get an oral history project off the
ground, help a novice oral historian conduct a responsible
interview, and challenge more experienced oral historians,
librarians, and
archivists who might use oral history to think broadly about the
impact of what they are doing." --Mid-Atlantic Archivist
"[The] standard work for many years to come." --Public
Historian
"Simple, straightforward, and effective. ... [A] stimulating and
formidable work...it is indeed a guide to practice, but it is much
more: it is a stepping-off point to the increasingly large universe
that oral history pracititioners occupy." --Oral History Review
"[An] all-purpose guide to the entire range of the oral history
process...this volume provides extensive background on oral history
and its relation to the larger realm of historical inquiry,
discusses how oral history interviewing compares with journalistic
and other interviewing techniques, and considers the workings of
the human memory." --American Archivist
"A definitive guide that provides all the practical advice and
explanations needed to turn your ideas and goals into action and to
create recordings that illuminate the human experience for
generations to come. Definitely recommended." --The Ultimate
Puzzle: Family Research
"[A] comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the art of oral
history." --Oral History in New Zealand
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