Transcribing Oral Histories

I've enjoyed "getting to know" the Academy Award-winning underwater videographer and scuba diving pioneer Jordan Klein, Sr. this week as I transcribed his oral history interview with the RICHES team!  Geoff Cravero and Dr. Connie Lester set high expectations when they described this interview as one of their all-time favorites, and it certainly has not disappointed.  I have also learned a lot about the rewarding, if at times agonizing, process of oral history transcription.

Jordan Klein, Sr. grew up in Miami, Florida and began diving when he was a young boy.  Upon his return from serving in the navy during World War II, he opened a diving boat business.  After experimenting with ways to adapt commercially available cameras for use underwater, in 1954, Klein developed the Mako Shark "amphibious underwater camera," which was the first underwater camera that was widely available for purchase.  Klein later filmed and created underwater props and sets for films and commercials, including the TV series Sea Hunt (1958-1961), Flipper (both the 1963 movie and the spinoff TV series, which aired from 1964-1967), the James Bond film Thunderball (1964), and the movies Splash (1984) and Cocoon (1985), among many others. (1)


Mr. Klein holding a later version of the underwater Mako camera. (2)


Healthways: Mako Shark camera

The original Mako Shark "underwater amphibious camera." (3)


Mr. Klein (on the left, I believe?) filming underwater. (4)


Mr. Klein in his workshop at age ninety, part of an outstanding series of photos of Mr. Klein shot by photographer Bryan Soderlind.  I highly recommend viewing the rest of the photographs and the accompanying article, which can be found here. (5)

Aside from the opportunity to learn about Jordan Klein's fascinating life, I was glad to gain experience with transcribing oral histories because they are a critical element of providing archival access to oral histories.  Time-stamped transcripts allow researchers to quickly get a sense of an interview's content and focus their time on the parts of the interview that are most relevant to them, rather than listening to the entire interview.  Additionally, transcripts are the only way that deaf or hard of hearing users can access oral history interviews.  In fact, the archive that I worked at in Maryland wasn't able to post digitized but un-transcribed oral history interview audio files online, because it was part of a community college that could only host ADA-compliant material on its website.  

So far, transcribing Mr. Klein's interview has been very rewarding but incredibly challenging.  I admit that when I began, I was grossly optimistic about how long the assignment would take!  I had not realized that Mr. Klein was 94 years old at the of the interview, and had recently experienced several mini-strokes (he talks about this in the interview, so I’m not revealing private information!)  I find myself rewinding and re-playing the same clip over and over (and over and over) again, and still don't feel entirely confident that I've created a completely accurate transcription.  

Next week, I'll explore some of what has worked well for me in creating a transcription, as well as strategies that I tried but were not as successful.  For now, I'll close with that I hope is an amusing end note: I picked this interview to transcribe primarily because it sounded fascinating, but also because I actually have a moderate phobia of deep water that I am trying to overcome, and thought it might be helpful to spend a healthy chunk of time listening to an interview about scuba diving as an odd sort of "exposure therapy."  While I still don't think I'll be putting on a scuba suit anytime soon, I think it has definitely helped me create more positive associations with the briny deep!

1) Watson, Earl. "The Name is Klein, Jordan Klein, Photographer." Orlando Sentinel, February 25, 2000. 
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2000-02-25-0002250202-story.html/

2) "The Living Legends of Dive." Scuba Diving Magazine. 

3) Collectiblend. "Heathways: Mako Shark." https://collectiblend.com/Cameras/Healthways/Mako-Shark.html.

4) International Legends of Diving. "Jordan Klein, Camera Housing Manufacturer, Movie Mogul, Cinematographer, and Entrepreneur."
http://www.internationallegendsofdiving.com/FeaturedLegends/Jordan_Klein_bio.htm.

5) Soderlind, Bryan. "Journal: Jordan Klein, Sr."
https://journal.bryansoderlind.com/uncategorized/jordan-klein-sr.html.

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