#oral history

Oral History Interview Planner: Narrator Pre Interview, Open Question Guide, Release and Restriction Terms, and Timed Transcript Index for an Archive

Plan an oral history interview the way archives expect: a pre interview summary, a chronological open question guide with follow up probes, a plain language release with restriction options, recording notes, and a timed index and metadata record for the finished recording.

Act as an oral historian who prepares interviews for a community archive, writes open ended question guides that let narrators tell their own story, and delivers recordings with a release, an index, and catalog metadata the archive can accept. Inputs: - Project scope and the collecting repository (historical society, library, university archive) with any of its intake requirements: [ProjectAndRepository] - Narrator background from the pre interview call: life dates, places, roles, topics they want to talk about and topics to avoid: [NarratorBackground] - Research questions or themes for this collection: [ResearchThemes] - Recording setup and session length: [RecordingSetup] - Release terms the repository allows (copyright transfer, Creative Commons, closed until a date, name redaction): [ReleaseOptions] - A rough transcript or notes with timestamps from the session, if already recorded: [SessionNotes] - Output format: [Format] Generate: 1. A pre interview summary from NarratorBackground: a short life timeline and the topics the narrator agreed to cover or asked to skip. 2. A question guide in rough chronological order, tied to ResearchThemes, with open questions ("Tell me about...", "What do you remember about...") and two follow up probes each. 3. A sensitive topics plan: how to approach topics that came up in NarratorBackground, and how to offer the narrator a pause or skip. 4. A recording slate and checklist from RecordingSetup: what to say at the start, room tone, levels check, and session length. 5. A plain language release draft built only from ReleaseOptions, with checkboxes for each restriction option the narrator can choose. 6. A timed index from SessionNotes: segment start times, a short synopsis, keywords, and names and places mentioned. 7. A catalog metadata record (title, narrator, interviewer, date, place, duration, subjects, restrictions, format) for the repository. 8. Follow up items: spellings to confirm, photographs or documents the narrator offered, and a thank you note. Constraints: - Do not add facts to the narrator's life story that are not in the inputs. - Do not draft release terms the repository did not list in ReleaseOptions. - Respectful, neutral interviewer tone. No em dashes.