Dear Sandra, I have worked only briefly on the 1937-45 'dream' archive, so
am not familiar with the modern (post 1981) project.
In answer to your questions ~
In what ways have you used/will you be using M-O material? I have used the
'dream' archives, as above, and will do so in future. I hope to distribute a
brief questionnaire on dreams to current respondents (below).

What kinds of information (on the writers themselves) is most useful to
your own research? Just the brief details at the top of the attached dream
record form.


What kinds of demographical information do you think the Archive should
gather on M-O writers?  (e.g. social class/no of children/marital
status/formal educational qualifications/ethnic origin/sexual orientation)
Perhaps, rather than a formal set of questions, writers could be asked
simply to give a short answer to an open-ended question such as 'Tell us a
little about who you are'. This may be difficult for researchers to code,
and would not provide systematic data, but might be more generally
informative. Questions such as 'social class' are difficult for people to
answer [even past or present occupation is not neccessarily a good guide],
'marital status' requires about six categories, 'ethnic origin' is a
minefield [I am a cockney by birth, Texan by choice], and 'sexual
orientation' likewise. Perhaps if such data were gathered, the best guide
would be the national census questions, so that the responses could be
compared to published census norms.


If you were starting a collection of writing records, what information
would you collect, ideally? Whatever comes to peoples' minds and which they
wish to write.


In what ways might you want to analyse the information?  (e.g. being able
to find out which writers over the age of 30 living in the North West of
England responded to the Spring 1994 directive part 2) I suppose such data
might be useful for research.

Dream recall.
Please tell us
Your age, last birthday:
Your sex:
The date today:

Please recall the last dream you remember having, whether it was last night,
last month, or last year.
But first tell us the date this dream occurred
____________________________________

Then tell us what time of day you think you recalled it
___________________________

Then tell us where you were when you recalled it
____________________________________

Please describe the dream exactly and as fully as you remember it.
Your report should contain, whenever possible: a description of the setting
of the dream, whether it was familiar to you or not; a description of the
people, their age, sex, and relationship to you; and any animals that
appeared in the dream.
If possible, describe your feelings during the dream and whether it was
pleasant or unpleasant.
Be sure to tell exactly what happened during the dream to you and other
characters.
Please continue your report for as long as you need to make it complete.
Thank you.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sandra Koa Wing" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 3:49 PM
Subject: Mass-Observers' writing records: please share your thoughts!


> Apologies for the length of this email, but a little of your time would be
> much appreciated!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Dear all,
>
>
> We are in the process of preparing a bid for funds to convert to an
> electronic database all the handwritten record card indexes that contain
> the writing records of correspondents of the contemporary M-O Project
since
> the project began in 1981.  Having this 'metadata' more easily accessible
> will facilitate researchers in using the material, and the information
> could eventually be made accessible through the M-O website.
>
>
> Being able to find out exactly which directives a correspondent has
> responded to will, for example, facilitate longitudinal studies of
> correspondents' writing over a time period, or studies of responses to
> particular directives from correspondents of a particular demographic.
>
>
> The retroconversion project could be seen as relatively straightforward,
> but there is potential for the Archive to take advantage of this
> opportunity to fill in gaps in some of the information, and make the
> database as helpful for analysing the material as possible.  It is crucial
> that we find out what information would be helpful for researching the
> directive responses, and it will guide the Archive in terms of what
> information should be gathered in the future.  This is really important
and
> warrants discussion - have you any thoughts on this?  We are particularly
> interested in finding out what M-O material users at all levels and in
> different disciplines think, given that there are so many different ways
in
> which the material can be used.  I have typed a few questions below
> (Directive-style) off the top of my head just to start the ball rolling -
> some questions might not apply to everyone; please respond either to the
> list or to me personally.
>
>
> In what ways have you used/will you be using M-O material?
> What kinds of information (on the writers themselves) is most useful to
> your own research?
>
>
> What kinds of demographical information do you think the Archive should
> gather on M-O writers?  (e.g. social class/no of children/marital
> status/formal educational qualifications/ethnic origin/sexual orientation)
>
>
> If you were starting a collection of writing records, what information
> would you collect, ideally?
>
>
> In what ways might you want to analyse the information?  (e.g. being able
> to find out which writers over the age of 30 living in the North West of
> England responded to the Spring 1994 directive part 2)
>
>
> Have you any recommendations (or criticisms) of particular databases or
> qualitative data analysis software?
>
>
>
> [An important side note: the Archive will continue to respect the
anonymity
> of correspondents: names and addresses will not be made public through the
> database and we will continue to comply with the provisions of the Data
> Protection Act.]
>
> With many thanks for your valued participation,
>
> Sandra
>
> Sandra Koa Wing
> Development Officer for the Mass-Observation Project
> The Library
> University of Sussex
> Brighton BN1 9QL, UK.
>
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Telephone: ++44 (0)1273 87 2716
> Website: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/library/massobs
>
> Join the Mass-Observation email discussion and annoucement list
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/massobs
>
>