Honesty is the best policy?

So, perhaps being honest was the problem today. J. Perkins set up an appointment for us to start listening to tapes and reading transcripts today at UR. On our first visit, they were insistant on knowing exactly what our finished project would be like/about/for. We said at that point we weren't entirely sure which wasn't a complete lie, but I digress...

Today they were again persistant about knowing what we were doing. I decided to be honest in efforts to be ethical in our field work. I told them that I already had a website started about the "riot" and quotes from these interviews might appear on the website. We assured them that we would cite them in any way they wanted and would keep any interviewees anonymous who desired such in their interview. The librarian looked panicked but set us up with the materials anyway and went "into the back" to check on what they could allow. After she returned, she said that we could keep taking notes today but that they would have to evaluate my website to see if they would allow us to use any of the interviews.

Not sure how our future acces will be effected by this, we will see. At least we got some "stuff" today while we were there.

re-post 1/28

Made initial contact with UR Rare Books and Special Collections today. Our hope is to une the "William Bub Rochester Race Riot Papers" as a starting point for our own work this semester. The collection includes newspaper clippings from the time of the July 1964 events and taped interviews with a variety of community members.

UR is very reticent to allow acces to the interviews as they are concerned that the collection is "being used to death". We did view one folder of clippings today (xerox copies of clippings, not originals). We will continue to try to gain access to interviews.

Re-blog

Due to current obstacles with archive access etc. we have decided not to link this progress blog with J. Wilkie's UB wesbsite for the time being. Until further notice, this blog will remain for the purposes of documenting our progress on work for AMS 540- Field Methodology Spring 2008, not as a larger publushable work.