Midwest Veterinary Conference: How to Legally Hire, Fire, and Avoid Sexual Harassment Liability, Part I
Ohio Veterinary Medical Association. Meeting (115th : 1999 : Columbus, Ohio)
1999
Submitter: We are weeding our collection at Ohio State University’s Veterinary Library and I came across a set of audio cassette tapes from the Midwest Veterinary Conference. Most of the topics aren’t as outdated as you’d expect for cassette tapes, but with this one I’m really hoping the goal has shifted from “avoiding liability” for sexual harassment, to actually avoiding sexual harassment! These are in a blank white case, so it seems we don’t have the original cover for the set, but here’s a photo of the tape.
Holly: I don’t remember how popular cassette tapes were (or weren’t) by 1999, but it’s an interesting format for conference session recordings. Within about five years it could have been digitized or moved along, though, probably. Is each tape a different session?
Hopefully the content is just poorly titled and it is really “how to keep sex [gender, really] from entering into personnel decisions”. I hope someone somewhere has digitized these, for the same reason others have digitized Edison wax cylendars.
“Most of the topics aren’t as outdated as you’d expect for cassette tapes, but with this one I’m really hoping the goal has shifted from “avoiding liability” for sexual harassment, to actually avoiding sexual harassment! ”
My understanding of the mentality in play is that it’s about refocusing the blame on the individual employee actually doing the harassing, and not–as the trend is increasingly today–letting blame be cast on the entire company, top to bottom, and probably at this rate upon every customer, supplier, etc. involved. You know, “systemic” sexism, “fostering a culture,” etc.
Still plenty of tapes doing their thing in 1999. Lots of conferences recorded like this.
Were a lot of people getting sexually harassed at the vet? Or… not-people? Ewww.
I worked for a research study from 2000-2005 (funded by the federal government) and had to record all of my cognitive test sessions on cassette tape. Although it was no longer a popular format for entertainment, it was the easiest and cheapest method for making an audio recording at the time.
Some law agencies, esp. prisons, still use tapes to record things. I think it is a security thing (tape players are single function devices) and probably they are easier to audit.
Cassette Tape!: Superior to 8-Track!
When I presented at conferences in the 90s, many of them were taped, and the event organizers made a tidy profit selling the cassette tapes. Attendees could take them home so they could share the proceedings with their colleagues, or could catch up on sessions that they missed.