MINUTES
 of the History of TLA Committee

 

March 18, 2004, Annual Conference

San Antonio, Texas

 

 

Committee convened at 10:20, Janis C. Test, Chair, presiding.  Members and guests were introduced.  Minutes from Annual Conf 2003 previously e-mailed to the membership, and will be sent to new members.  Minutes from Annual Assembly, July, 2003 presented and approved. 

 

Review of committee charge.  Committee needs to accomplish basic work on:

 

  1. What does TLA office/Archives have in the way of interviews?

  2. How is it indexed?

  3. Investigate the cost of upgrading storage medium

  4. How many have been transcribed/

 

Mary Lankford agreed to visit TLA Archives to find out what is actually there and create a spreadsheet with name of interviewee, date interviewed, interviewed by, physical location of interview tape, and whether transcribed or not. She will also merge two prior committee lists and the list of 100 Texas Library champions (in case some of them have not been interviewed.)  Once this has been sent to the membership, committee will decide how to proceed as per setting up interviews.

 

Discussion of preservation (i.e. upgrading audio tapes to CD or DVD technology).  Importance of transcription, and Janis Test agreed to find out some idea of cost involved for proceeding with this area of the committee’s work.  Committee wants to see list of interview questions, have an idea of the length of the interview involved, and Antonio Martinez suggested we may need a legal release form.  Janis agreed to query Gloria Meraz about this.

 

David Hennington, our liaison to the 2005 Conference Planning committee, discussed next year’s conference, April 5-9 in Austin.  Mentioned that program dropdeadline is Labor Day. 

 

Discussion of missing tape recorder rig.  Janis will continue efforts to locate.

 

Janis, as she was charged last year, has created a Committee webpage. (see attached)  Committee approved basic design, agreed to consider additional information to be included in links, and will discuss on the listserv.  Suggestions made to place PDF copies of transcripts online, or snips of actual audio interviews.  Janis will talk with Mary Ann Emerson, TLA’s webmaster, and find out if this is possible, and how to proceed. 

 

 

Discussion of program possibilities for TLA AC 2005.  Possibilities:

 

  1. Pre-conference program on engaging school age children in oral history interviews and basic genealogy work, in conjunction with ALHRT and Genealogy Interest Group.

  2. Typical “war stories” historical interview panel on the next phase of the Bluebonnet award program (follow-up to this year’s program)

Committee will consider other possibilities and confer via listserv. 

 Committee adjourned at 11:30 a.m.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 Mary Lankford and Janis C. Test

 

 

Return to
Committee Homepage