Following up from yesterday's discussion (and acknowledging this may be drifting a bit from the original question), I think that sociolinguistics as a field has done a poor job of establishing best-practices when it comes to managing and preserving our data.  We've obviously done a much better job of developing best-practices in other areas of fieldwork (and lab/analysis work) as many of the recommendations people posted demonstrate.  While I don't know all of the books recommended, Tagliamonte (2006) is the only methods textbook I can think of that has a sizable discussion of the sorts of issues that Damien addresses below.  Most textbooks jump from how to plan and conduct (and possibly record) interviews but then skip from there to how to analyze those interviews.

This was one of the main motivations for my work on the Sociolinguistic Archive and Analysis Project (http://ncslaap.lib.ncsu.edu/) and a paper I wrote for the Language and Linguistics Compass (2008; http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/linguistics/article_view?article_id=lnco_articles_bpl051 ).  Our recordings are valuable (duh!) but we've done a poor job (again as a field; I'm not talking about individual efforts or what, say, individual labs do) of ensuring that our data are preserved, remain accessible, remain useful, etc...  I'd be curious to hear what people think about this, and - not saying go read my paper or anything but... - if people disagree with the arguments/characterizations I make in that paper.

Best,
  --tyler 
--
Tyler Kendall
[log in to unmask] | http://uoregon.edu/~tsk/
Dept. of Linguistics | University of Oregon



On Oct 20, 2010, at 11:30 AM, Damien Hall wrote:

> Another thought: I don't know about publications which actually set down good data-storage protocols, but the simple protocol which has never failed me is this one.
> 
> - Never have fewer than two copies of your data.
> 
> This includes during the transfer process from recording device to storage, so a typical path is: 1. Record data; 2. Copy it to your hard-drive; 3. From there, make your backup copy (after this, three copies exist); 4. Check the integrity of each file in each copy of the data by listening to bits of it, if not also inspecting it phonetically, just to see that the waveforms look right (I have a Praat script for this, or you can just do it through whatever media player you use); 5. Delete the original copy from your recorder, to free the space for next time.
> 
> - (Assuming your data is digital) Have your primary copy on a hard-drive which is reserved for only that, and your backup on recordable discs (whether they're CDs or DVDs will depend on the length of your interviews).
> 
> - Keep your backups physically separate from your primary copy.
> 
> For my PhD data, the primary copy and the backup are physically separated by the Atlantic Ocean, which may be a little extreme, but it can't hurt. It actually does make me nervous that I only have access to my primary copy, since I'm not planning to go to the US soon. For the data I work on at the moment, the primary copy is on my Department's server, and the backup DVDs are in a locked filing-cabinet.
> 
> The locked filing-cabinet also helps with informant confidentiality. We actually guarantee to our informants that their personal details (including what they say in the interview; only researchers in the team can listen to whole interviews) will be kept confidential at all times, and you may have to do the same.
> 
> 
> I have never transcribed a corpus that I was working with; if you are going to do that, others may have tips about how to store it well and confidentially, but they will probably be quite similar to these!
> 
> Hope that helps -
> 
> Damien
> 
> -- 
> Damien Hall
> 
> University of York
> 
> http://www.york.ac.uk/res/aiseb
> 
> http://www.york.ac.uk/language/staff/academic-research/damien-hall/
> 
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