Oral History Manual Book

Not necessarily a book to read cover-to-cover, but I imagine this would be an incredible and invaluable resource while in the actual process of conducting oral histories. Sommer boils the process down to practical essentials, and the numerous bullet-point lists are so useful, concise, and readable. She touches on a lot of aspects I would not have considered earlier, such as copyright issues, and she deftly navigates tough areas like building trust across possible discomforts, like a narrator of color talking about racism to a white interviewer.

The main reason why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is the technological aspect. This was first written in 2002 and then republished in 2009, but honestly, due to the formatting and illustrations, the text seems so much older. I'm not the most technologically-literate person, but I wonder how out-of-date those sections are, several years later. I imagine one would want to do research into more recent technologies in addition to reading Sommer's text.