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Response from Lee Berry, Curator of Oral Histories (via Nicole J. email 3/6/19): "I’m disinclined to merge the audio files, since they’re usually indicated in the transcript and it can be helpful to know which audio file you’re listening to as you navigate the PDF." Based on her response, let's move ahead with a zipped folder containing all the sections within a single interview.
flac assurance: To make sure what our flac file is a proper copy, even though we are not promising preservation, we need to be sure that the flac can be transferred back to the wav file with no changes in data. This is done by taking a checksum of the original wav and then after the flac is made generating a new wav from the flac and comparing its checksum to the original file. The tool used for the conversion is freac (to make the flac) and the flac command line tool to rebuild a new wav. In all cases the flac command line tool is considered to be the gold standard for conversion in or out of the flac format, not ffmpeg. Other tools, Audacity, were tested but did not generate the same checksum between the new and old wav files, making any future programmatic comparisons difficult.
User persona per 5/2 mtg. with Lee Berry
User references particular passage found within oral history transcript. Would then like to listen to that passage via the audio player (should be able to navigate to particular file based on notes within transcript). May also like to download that particular passage; would prefer not to download the entire oral history recording.
Next steps per 5/2 mtg. with Lee Berry
Develop audio player that retains individual files so user can navigate to particular file of interest. We will discuss download functionality after player development. Lee prefers that time be spent on player versus download functionalities (i.e., zipped folder download capability not as important as user being able to listen to or download particular file per transcript notation). Consider asking internal users such as Mariel, Christy and/or Rebecca how they would like the player and download functionality to perform. Per post-meeting discussion, let's wait until player is created to ask about user preference for download capabilities.
Content not covered:
- We will not be working at all with WMA files yet due to issues in handling the audio codec and questions about the best option for conversion. As there are very few of these files this should not be a problem.
- We will not transfer or preserve any tags on the audio files themselves. Currently (3/2019) it does not seem like any Oral Histories use tags on the audio file itself.
- We are serving as a method of access for the Oral Histories, not as a preservation system. We will preserve the files we have to the same standards other digital collections files are preserved but Oral Histories is handling the preservation of their files themselves according to their practices.
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