First, the fieldworker is capable of acquiring an enormous amount of information far more than was ever possible previously. Before mechanical means of reproduction were available, documentation of even the simplest text was at best an approximation, limited to what someone could write down in the midst of an event that could never be redone exactly. With early means of reproduction, it was possible to make crude recordings and obtain still photographic images in a narrow range of situations. With modern equipment, it is possible to get extremely accurate sounds and images in a wide range of situations. Second, the fieldworker has been freed of the need to concentrate on capturing items (the machines do that) and allowed to consider more complex questions, such as the way various parts of performance or enactment interrelate or minute complexities of performance itself. The performance analyses of Dennis Ted lock, for example, would be impossible without accurate recordings that can be listened to again and again with equipment that lets the analyst find exact moments in performance. Third, [I‘C WONG!“ Of how to get information has been replaced by what is to he done with the great mass of information so easily acquired. A nineteenth; century collecmr of ballads or animal narratives had no difficulty managing his information; it was easy enough to organize the songs and stories and provide simple annotations giving the specifics of perfonnance. A twentieth century fieldworker coming home with videotapes, audiotapes, and photographs of a complex event has a far more difficult joh of documentation, storage, and analysis.