One of the most powerful things about archived oral histories is each recorded interview contains hundreds, if not thousands, of moments filled with meaningful content that possess near infinite potential for engaging future researchers in unforeseen ways. One of the great challenges to tapping this great potential has always been that of discovery and usability….
We just added a new feature to the OHMS viewer–the ability to create direct links to individual segments in an OHMS index. Now, you can dynamically send your users to specific moments in an oral history interview. Check it out!
We now have over 9,000 oral histories at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries, where we take great care to curate these treasures. Recently, I was going through a box of old reel-to-reel and cassette tapes that were never accessioned into the oral history collection. Some were recordings of various…
Contrary to common perception, the “Wave” is not, itself a “format” but a container for housing a particular set of data. The Wave as we tend to use it in oral history, folklore and audio archival and preservation contexts is a data file based on the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) serving as a container…
I often get asked which audio software is the best to use in the archive. Again, no easy answer as to which is “best.” Most basic packages will allow you to digitize and do basic edits and then save as a major filetype. In terms of workflow, they are all, conceptually, the same. That said,…
A few years ago the Nunn Center switched to Mac computers. Being a long-time Mac user, I was thrilled about this transition, especially with regard to working with digital video. The only downside to this transition to Macs was the inevitable parting of ways with Sony’s Sound Forge, my long-time favorite audio editing platform. Since…
In 1890, folklorist and anthropologist J. Walter Fewkes declared that the study of folklore “cannot reach its highest scientific value until some method is adopted by means of which an accurate record of the stories can be obtained and preserved.”[1] Since then, there have been many revolutions in recording technologies that have transformed our capabilities…
This week we launched the first phase of the Oral History in the Digital Age project (http://ohda.matrix.msu.edu) to explore best practices for collecting, curating and disseminating oral history featuring over 70 engaging essays, a portal to over 200 best practices documents online, as well the “Thinking Big” video series. Funded by the Institute of Museum…
Just a reminder about how dependent we are on commercial entities and how precarious that dependency can be. So, for the past 15 years, there has been a dominant mac-based, professional stereo audio editing system. Peak, by Bias, has been the best stereo audio editor for Mac available. Recently, the Nunn Center boldly switched over…
