ABSTRACT
This chapter takes all the steps interviewers should complete before setting off for an interview. It discusses the both conduct general background research and interviewee-specific research. The chapter uses the research and the project's mission statement to develop an interview guide, with questions and themes to pursue. The adage that practice makes perfect certainly applies to learning how to use oral history recording equipment. Oral history projects occasionally will attract a volunteer whose professional background is in journalism or some other occupation that involves interviewing. If project is using video to document a particular visual aspect of the community, or if the interview will have an important visual element, documenting that visual component sometimes can be done in a separate session. Some oral historians have found it useful to go back for a second interview, this time on video, in which the interviewee takes the interviewer to the place that figures into the story.
