navigating the analog waves: digitizing audio cassettes for your collection
DESCRIPTION
Digitized audio cassette tapes from a pre-existing archive. Created metadata standards and published an online collection using contentDM.TRANSCRIPT
AUDIO
Navigating the
WAVES
Photo from “History of the Quest Club”, SW McGill, 1948
ME Kay Gregg [email protected]
TAPE ARCHIVE
MLS student, IUPUI
Idealistic about:
Collection Development
Archives and Records Management
Digital Libraries
Public Library Management
Cataloging
INTERNSHIP
WHAT I DIDWHAT I LEARNED
PRESENTATION
Photo from “History of the Quest Club”, SW McGill, 1948
MY PROJECT
QUEST CLUB•Lecture society presenting
since 1911•Recording audio since 1974•Fort Wayne power brokers:
streets, parks and schools
Photo from “History of the Quest Club”, SW McGill, 1948
“The Quest Club of Fort Wayne, provides a forum to prepare, present, and discuss original research by Club members on social, economic, scientific, cultural, political, and historical topics.”
“The Quest Club of Fort Wayne, provides a forum to prepare, present, and discuss original research by Club members on social, economic, scientific, cultural, political, and historical topics.”
HOUSED IN THE BASEMENT
GOALS1. Set up a digitization station to process cassette taperesources in the Genealogy Center.
GOALS2. Create a metadata template to attach information to each record.
GOALS3. Identify archival standards for digital audio.
GOALS4. Create a public collection using the library's content management system, contentDM.
GOALS5. Author training materials for Genealogy Center staff and volunteers.
http://vimeo.com/32169623
GOAL 1DIGITIZATION STATION
HARDWARE
LAPTOP WITH SOUNDCARDFAST-ish PROCESSORBIG INTERNAL HARDRIVE
Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz CPU 3GB RAM 250GB HDD
HARDWARE
TASCAM PortaStudio 2 trackNICE HEAD PHONESQUIET ROOM
HARDWARE2 2 TB EXTERNAL DRIVES
SOFTWARE
Audacity
SOFTWARE
contentDM
SOFTWARE
Adobe Acrobat Pro
SOFTWARE
EXCEL
GOAL 2INFO STANDARDS
METADATA
METADATA
METADATA
Put some thought to your naming convention
Never underestimate the power of a check list
GOAL 3DIGITIZATION STANDARDS
George Massenburg says:
96 kHz, 24 bit, linear PCM files are
the minimum standard for digital
audio preservation file.
96 kHz, 24 bit, linear PCM files are
the minimum standard for digital
audio preservation file.
The International Association for Sound and Video Archives standards
96 kHz, 24 bits.
96 kHz, 24 bits.
GOAL 4GIVE IT TO USERS
MAKE IT A BIG DEAL
BLOG ABOUT IT
PARTNER WITH SCHOOL PROGRAMS
LINK IT TO LOCAL EVENTS
INCENTIVISE USE…SRP
WHAT I LEARNED
Associate Director, IT and Production Ann Arbor District Library
ELI NEIBERGER
http://vimeo.com/32169538
POLICYCOLLECTION DEVELOPMENT
DIGITAL ACQUISTION
ASSESMENTSubjectAge UniquenessQualityQuantity
Item is not uniqueItem is outside your acquisition policyItem is unrelated to any existing collectionItem is jacked up*
* More on preservation later
Photo from “History of the Quest Club”, SW McGill, 1948
Support from the Support from the CreatorsCreators
Support from the Support from the CreatorsCreators
Club Club Still Still
ExistsExists
Club Club Still Still
ExistsExists
Unique Unique ContentContentUnique Unique ContentContent
Great Great ConditionCondition
Great Great ConditionCondition
Dario Robleto 2002"At War With the Entropy of Nature / Ghosts Don't Always Want to Come Back"
DIGITIZATION ≠ PRESERVATION
Know this… Establish whether and when original materials can bedisposed of with confidence.
Capturing Analog Sound for Digital Preservation: Report of a Roundtable Discussion of Best Practices for Transferring Analog Discs and Tapes
DIGITIZATION ≠ PRESERVATION
Know this…
Establish a redundancy protocol for a given digital archive and for the migration of the digital archive media as well as the underlying digital archive technology
Capturing Analog Sound for Digital Preservation: Report of a Roundtable Discussion of Best Practices for Transferring Analog Discs and Tapes
DIGITIZATION ≠ PRESERVATION
Verify effectiveness of the integrity of the migration protocols including background archive soft error checking.Capturing Analog Sound for Digital Preservation: Report of a Roundtable Discussion of Best Practices for Transferring Analog Discs and Tapes
THEN WHY BOTHER?
DIGITAL PRESERVATION
Protects the information, even when the original format degrades
DIGITAL CONVERSION
Gets the information out to users- portable and easily shared
DIGITIZATION ≠ PRESERVATION
BIGLOSSLESS
OPEN SOURCE (preferably)
DIGITIZATION ≠ PRESERVATION
.WAV
Tape VaultLibrary of Congress Says:Long-term Storage(Materials having permanent value)Storage areas should be kept at a constant 45 to 50° F or colder (do not store magnetic tapes below 46° F as it may cause lubrication separation from the tape binder) and 20 to 30% RH for magnetic tapes (open reel and cassette) and 45 to 50% RH for all others. Widely fluctuating temperature or RH severely shortens the life span of all recordings. Environmental conditions shall not fluctuate more that ±5° F or ±5% RH over a 24 hour period. Store in dark areas except when being accessed, being sure to keep recordings away from UV sources (unshielded fluorescent tubes and sunlight.)
Tape VaultLibrary of Congress Says:
Don’t refrigerateDon’t let humidity fluctuateDon’t expose to UV rays, even fluorescentsAdditionally…Store in cases upright on end
Problems encountered
Limited resources for hardwareLimited testing outside the facilityDifficulty accessing CMS from wireless networkBad timing for CONTENTdm upgradeSo much stuff, so little time
Lessons learnedProject management
You can't always get what you want.
Empire building
Importance of tracking and documenting
Lessons learnedThink beyond
the
PROJECTto the PROGRAM
ESTIMATES
Convert -Digitize audio from cassette tape -Collect and combine scans into single document
Describe • Technical information• Metadata
Convert Digitize audio from cassette tape to downloadable MP3.
1.Collect tape from archive2.Assign capture settings3.Capture playback digitally4.Export archive file to WAV format
5.Export patron file to MP3 format
Convert Digitize audio from cassette tape to downloadable MP3.
Time estimate: 1.5 hours per speechapproximate number of speeches in archive = 570Time to digitize cassette archive = 855 hours
Skill level: technical
Convert Digitize image scans into readable text files for download
1.Collect DVD from archive2.Copy folder to internal drive
3.Combine TIFFs into PDF4.Run text recognition software
5.Optimize PDF for web download
Convert Digitize image scans into readable text files for download
Time estimate: .25 hour per documentApproximate number of speeches in archive = 1396Time to digitize paper archive = 349 hours
Skill level: clerical
Describe •Name each file with
pertinent title•Maintain organization within the
project•Attach metadata to each object
for use in CONTENTdm•Publish compound object to
CONTENTdm and back up archived copies
Time estimate: .5 hour per documentApproximate number of speeches in archive = 1396Time to accurately describe each object = 698 hours
Skill level: Professional
Hardware Recommendations
2 2 terabyte external hard drives • $175
Cassette Deck:TASCAM CD-A750
• $630http://tascam.com/product/cd-a750/
PC Audio Interface:$250
TASCAM US-800
Software Recommendation
s•Audacity •Adobe Acrobat Pro•Microsoft Excel•CONTENTdm project manager•And hosted server
Software Recommendations
“I’m Broke and can’t afford fancy CMSs”
“My IT Department already hates me”
“Greenstone/Drupal/contentDM is beyond me”
Important Resources: Technical
Digital Collection Building• Library of Congress, "Selection Criteria for Preservation Digital
Reformatting"• Columbia University, "Selection Criteria for Digital Imaging Projects" • University of California, "Selection Criteria for Digitization" • Harvard University, "Selection for Digitization: a Decision-Making
Matrix" • National Agricultural Library, "Selection Criteria and Guidelines" • Oxford University, "Decision Matrices and Workflows" (Appendix B) • National Library of Australia Digitisation Policy, 2000-2004.
Important Resources: OrganizationalBair, Sheila, Myung-Ja Han, and Jason Lee. (2010). Creating Metadata Best
Practices for CONTENTdm Users. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications: DC-2010, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 20-22, 2010, 74-78.
Campbell, Dermot, Edward Jones, and Martin Glavin. “Audio quality assessmenttechniques—A review, and recent developments.” Signal Processing 89.8(2009):1489-1500. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 21 Mar. 2011.
Council on Library and Information Resources, and Library of Congress (2006).Capturing Analog Sound for Digital Preservation: Report of a Roundtable Discussion of Best Practices for Transferring Analog Discs and Tapes. Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources and Library of Congress.
Miller, Mary Helen. "The Spoken Word, Searchable for Scholarship." Chronicle of HigherEducation 56.37 (2010): A13. Professional Development Collection. EBSCO. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.
Notess, Greg R. "Searching Beyond Text: Issues with Multimedia Searching." Online 24.5 (2000): 61.Professional Development Collection. EBSCO. Web. 12 Mar. 2011.
Weig, E., Terry, K. & Lybarger, K (2007). Large scale digitization of oral history: Acase study.D-Lib Magazine 13.