[Studiotalk] Two questions???

[Nancy Gahagan]

Hi Linden,

It's a tricky question. The first thing would be to know whether or not the
candidate speaks English well, and how heavy the accent is. My
understanding is that NLS prefers readers with a pretty neutral accent, not
that exceptions aren't made. I had a Chinese woman audition for me, and I
felt badly that we had to reject her because her English wasn't clear
enough, even though she had a pleasant voice. We have had British readers
in the past, which worked out fine. But you have to make sure that they are
aware of the American pronunciations of some words. The fist one that jumps
to mind is medicine - which they of course pronounce MED-sin. There are
some other words though that really sound completely different. If they
aren't good about seeking out those words ahead of time and "Americanizing"
them, there will be a lot of corrections to do later. Also, you would just
need to make sure that you choose appropriate material for them to read.
Having a Brit read a book about the Old West or something might sound odd.

Regarding your other question, we have not formulated a plan yet for
volunteer narrators returning. We will have to negotiate with leadership at
Perkins as they make the call on that. I am hoping we might be able to work
out some kind of limited/rotating access. We are still out until the 18th
of May at the earliest anyway. Our governor keeps extending the stay at
home order. When we go back I envision a constant disinfecting of all the
equipment after every use. We have about 40 volunteer narrators and four
booths. I worry about narrators being in a booth and then another person
going in shortly after. Seems like that isn't safe. They can't record with
masks on to keep particles that might get into the air contained. That
seems to be the trickiest thing.

Will be interested to hear how others will handle the return as things
develop!

Nancy

Nancy Gahagan
Recording Studio Manager
Perkins School for the Blind

Perkins Library
175 North Beacon Street
Watertown MA 02472
P: 617-972-7362
Perkins.org

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On Mon, May 4, 2020 at 11:35 AM Coffman, Linden <LCoffman at library.in.gov>
wrote:

> Hello to all,
>
> This is coming to you from my remote location and I suspect that many of
> you may be in the same boat as I am.  I hope that all of you are doing well
> and staying healthy.  These sure are interesting, and for those of us who
> do what we do, challenging times as well.
>
> Question One:  What do you do in regards using narrators with a foreign
> accent?  Do you use them?  This comes because I have had a volunteer
> application sent to me from someone who is originally from India?  I have
> not spoken to her directly as we are clearly weeks away from opening up to
> outside volunteers, but I wondered how the rest of you would handle this.
> Many of the foreign nationals that I know and are friends with speak and
> read English fluently but the accent is still there. Suggestions?
>
> Question Two:  Have any of you or your institutions come up with
> procedures for restarting the recording process after this Covid 19
> "shelter in place" ( we've officially called it "Hunker down, Hoosiers"
> here in Indiana)?  If you've got anything written down or anything at all,
> I'd be interested in seeing how you might be handling the reopening.
>
> Thanks to you all and stay safe.
>
> (See attached for the types of hazards / distractions when it come to
> working at home)
>
> Linden Coffman
> Director, Indiana Voices
> _______________________________________________
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> studiotalk at islemail.org
> http://islemail.org/mailman/listinfo/studiotalk
>
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