Roy M. Mersky: An Oral History Interview (review)

You do not need to be a Texan or a lawyer or a librarian to appreciate this seventy-five-page book, a transcript of four interview sessions with Roy M. Mersky, longtime director of the Tarlton Law Library and Jamail Center for Legal Research at the University of Texas and a pioneer in hiring people at the law school with both law and library degrees, a practice now widely followed around the nation. The publication is part of the law library's series of oral history interviews with people "whose careers shaped the Law School and the legal history of Texas" (iii).

The Mersky interview is a classic oral history transcript from which readers can learn about interview structure and presentation as well as fascinating content on several themes that reoccur in twentieth-century historical accounts. The straightforward presentation of the interview transcript is a model of how best to publish—online or on paper—an oral history. The document includes a portrait-style photograph of Mersky and an editor's preface that briefly summarizes his life and characterizes him as "one in a handful of scholars who invented modern law librarianship" (v). In one of the few weaknesses of the volume, the preface also takes on a eulogistic tone and peculiarly tells readers that Mersky "departed this life on May 6, 2008, after a brief illness" (v), a euphemistic construction seldom found in modern obituaries.

The book includes an interview history, naming the interviewer, dates of four interview sessions, the transcriptionist, editors, legal status, photographer, and layout designer. One might wish it also included the interview locations as well as a biographical sketch of the interviewer. The format is easy to follow, with questions appearing in italics and footnotes used appropriately to clarify names, dates, and sequences of events that otherwise are unclear in the transcript.

Just as the book's format serves as an exemplar for oral history transcript publication, so also can oral historians learn a great deal about how to conduct an interview. In this case, interviewer William J. Chriss works backward through Mersky's life, first asking him about his current position, the evolution of how legal research is taught, and the growing specialization of law librarians as both lawyers and information technology specialists. Chriss eventually gets around to asking Mersky about his childhood growing up in the depression in the Bronx and then proceeds chronologically and thematically back to the present.

Structurally, the best part of this interview is the clear illustration of the value of short questions that evoke long answers. Mersky clearly is a talker of the sort oral historians love. And his penchant for anecdotes also illustrates a phenomenon oral historians frequently encounter: the rehearsed story. Twice (23 and 42), Mersky tells us about leaving New York and going to college in Madison, Wisconsin, after his Army service in World War II. It was his first experience with a coed institution, having attended an all boys elementary school, an all boys high school, and the military. "I remember the first time classes broke and I came out in the halls and all the aroma of perfume from all these women coming out was overwhelming. I couldn't breathe because of this strange perfume odor that engulfed me" (42).

Some aspects of Chriss' approach to the interview are puzzling. On several occasions, he seems to catechize Mersky about his curriculum vitae, including questioning him about books he had written and edited and what military awards Mersky, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, brought back from the war, information clearly already on the public record. Readers also will note the occasional departure from neutral open-ended questions, as when the interviewer asks: "Were you always interested in school? Did you always have fun in school? You said you couldn't swing a hammer very well" (24).

The interviewer, moreover...