MMILL Team Processing



My MMILL group is the Oral Histories materials & progress. All of the materials we had to go through were given to us inside one file. This includes the pictures, transcripts, and some audio files. So far we have been  able to organize all of these materials by giving each interviewer their own file with all of their materials in one place. We made sure all of the file names matched (sorted by name and date) so it can easily be understood/found. This will make it easier for the website curators to place all of the information into the website for people to easily find. This goes the same for the search terms we are picking out of the transcripts for them to give the users more specific results.
We've been in the process if converting the last few cassette tapes to MP3 audio files which has defiantly been a new experience that we had to learn how to do. Once we figured out how to use the cassette recorder the process wasn't hard it was just time consuming which I wasn't expecting. Learning about data and digitization helped me understand the point of this more and will help me if I have to convert things in the future. Currently, I am still writing the blurbs for the descriptions of the interview audio files. It's not necessarily hard, its more tedious work and the audio files/transcripts of the interviews are all really long so it takes a while to get through. Knowing about metadata from our digital humanities concepts has helped me in this project because of all of the organization and connecting we had to do for the files. 


Comments

  1. Jordan RobichaudOctober 30, 2022 at 5:58 PM

    Good point on the naming system creating easier access for website visitors looking for something/someone specific! That's something I forgot to mention in my response, but definitely something important that we've been working on. I think that this effort will bring a nice system and usability to the Maine MILL site.

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  2. NataliaOctober 30, 2022 at 9:11 PM

    That is a great way to organize all the materials you guys have from one file. The process of sorting and naming every material must have taken you guys a while. Converting tapes to MP3 audio is also a new process to me as well, so I can't wait to see how it comes out!

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  3. Dr. MOctober 31, 2022 at 11:20 AM

    I fixed your formatting :). Yes, the organization and filing system are the foundation (and heart) of a database and the meta data you are pulling out of the interviews will be the powerhouse of the search engine, making all of this information more accessible (I mean, not to mention putting something on the www that was up until now on a cassette tape in a closet somewhere...). It may seem tedious, but it's valuable work and is setting a precedence for 300 audio interviews.

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