Using little more than the technology we walk around with every day, collecting oral histories is easier than ever.
For more information on oral histories and podcasting, please see the compiled “classwork” on Google Classroom, course code: vu10li
Here are the steps I took to record and post an oral history with New Hampshire State Librarian Michael York. Find the interview here.
- Consider your purpose for the oral history.
- In my case, I want to capture memories from State Library staff.
- Consider copyright issues and obtain permission in the form of a release form from all parties on tape. There are various releases available in books and websites about oral histories. I have compiled some of these in the Google Classroom section under “Legal and Ethical Issues.”
- Test, test, and retest your recording app, microphone, and equipment. There are plenty of recording options.
- For this recording I used Audacity on a Mac computer. However, the software is no longer supported for Macs running Catalina OS, so I will move to a voice recording app, such as Voice Memos or Garage Band on my iPhone.
- I used a dual-head lavalier microphone to allow for a better recording quality (highly recommended, ~$22).
- Record yourself and listen. Do you cringe with every “ummm” or “well…?”
- Conduct research or a preliminary interview with your subject and compile questions in advance of the interview.
- Edit the recording, if needed. Aside from clipping the start and finish, I did not do much editing.
- Transcribe the finished recording.
- I tried different (free) methods — including listenng and then quickly reading the audio back into Google Docs’ voice recognition — but ultimately found that listening to a sentence, pausing, and typing was most efficient for me.
- I converted the audio file to an MP3 file by simply importing the file into iTunes, editing the metadata, and saving a copy as an MP3. Note: On a Windows computer, iTunes will still be the easiest way to convert an m4a file to mp3. However, WordPress is able to handle m4a files natively. (Omeka’s ability to handle m4a is unknown at this time.)
- Content management systems, like WordPress and Omeka, natively provide audio controls for the uploaded MP3 file. Test it out by clicking the play button below!
Oral Histories