1). Oral History is often a key source used by public historians. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this type of source?
The strengths of oral history would be that they are primary and first hand sources, which adds credibility. For example, a WWII veteran would be a much better source of information about the war, then someone who has simply read about it. Weaknesses include the fact that they are a one person perspective, thus one person’s account of an event involving many. Some potential interviewees also have bad memories, and thus unreliable. For example, a person in their 80’s or 90’s may have trouble properly remembering names and dates from when they were in their 20s, and thus may get a person or event confused. It is also …show more content…
There is a ton of information, some useless and some very beneficial, and the trick is to know how to be able to look through it and find what you need in an efficient manner. A problem that arises is issues such a spelling errors and poor handwriting that can make the documents hard to comprehend. One of the main problems that arise when working with manuscripts is that it’s hard to differ between what should and shouldn’t be considered a manuscript. This results in their being a wide variety of different categories of manuscripts, which can be a hassle to separate from one another. Thus, Manuscripts can be great sources of primary information; it just may take some hard work to find what you are looking …show more content…
I say this for a variety of reasons. The fact that he was there in person and eager to answer questions which really added an element that was missing from, for example, our authors. It also helps that he went to Cal, and did a lot of what we are doing now, so there was a sense that we could achieve what he has achieved. He was also very enthusiastic to talk to us, which added energy to his overall presentation. I also liked Julia McGinnis’s presentation because she shared several interesting stories about the trials and tribulations, such as flooding, that can come with library and archival work, and it was also good, I feel, for the class to get a sense of her and what she was like considering a lot of us would go on to work with her for are real world experiences in the archives. Therefore, I found those to presenters to be most
The strengths of oral history would be that they are primary and first hand sources, which adds credibility. For example, a WWII veteran would be a much better source of information about the war, then someone who has simply read about it. Weaknesses include the fact that they are a one person perspective, thus one person’s account of an event involving many. Some potential interviewees also have bad memories, and thus unreliable. For example, a person in their 80’s or 90’s may have trouble properly remembering names and dates from when they were in their 20s, and thus may get a person or event confused. It is also …show more content…
There is a ton of information, some useless and some very beneficial, and the trick is to know how to be able to look through it and find what you need in an efficient manner. A problem that arises is issues such a spelling errors and poor handwriting that can make the documents hard to comprehend. One of the main problems that arise when working with manuscripts is that it’s hard to differ between what should and shouldn’t be considered a manuscript. This results in their being a wide variety of different categories of manuscripts, which can be a hassle to separate from one another. Thus, Manuscripts can be great sources of primary information; it just may take some hard work to find what you are looking …show more content…
I say this for a variety of reasons. The fact that he was there in person and eager to answer questions which really added an element that was missing from, for example, our authors. It also helps that he went to Cal, and did a lot of what we are doing now, so there was a sense that we could achieve what he has achieved. He was also very enthusiastic to talk to us, which added energy to his overall presentation. I also liked Julia McGinnis’s presentation because she shared several interesting stories about the trials and tribulations, such as flooding, that can come with library and archival work, and it was also good, I feel, for the class to get a sense of her and what she was like considering a lot of us would go on to work with her for are real world experiences in the archives. Therefore, I found those to presenters to be most