Oral History Handbook

Once an oral history has been recorded, it needs to be edited for clarity and accessibility. This section covers what edits to perform, how to generate captions, transcripts, and necessary description to submit to the archives with the completed oral history.

MSU students have access to software that allows them to do much of the editing and transcription work online. Participants can also meet with a librarian one-on-one or in groups for further guidance on editing videos.

General Editing Guidelines

• Minimal: Editing of oral histories should be minimal. The goal of the recording is to protect the historical record.
• Cuts: Clean cuts at the beginning and end that eliminate setup, chit chat, and false starts. Also, cut very long (more than five seconds) pauses or unexpected breaks or interruptions.
• Audio/Video quality: Connection or disconnection of different audio tracks in case some form of audio failed.

Recommended Editing Programs

Video

• Adobe Premier Pro (All MSU Students have Adobe Creative Cloud accounts, which provides access to Premier Pro)
• Final Cut Pro
• iMovie

Audio

• Adobe Audition (All MSU Students have Adobe Creative Cloud accounts, which provides access to Audition)
• Audacity
• GarageBand

Edited Oral History Audio and Video Specifications

When you export your edited oral from the editing program make sure the digital file exported from the program follow the specification listed below:

Video

• Exported in an MP4 video container
• H.264 video codec
  • 1080p 24 or 30 fps 1.78:1 aspect ratio (16x9)
  • 8 Mbps target bitrate
• AAC audio codec
  • Stereo 256 kbps bitrate
  • 48khz sample rate
• All speakers must be recorded via a lavalier microphone, headset, direct feed from a PA system, or a shotgun mic in close proximity to the speaker. This requirement is to ensure clean and clear audio from all speakers.

Audio 

• WAV container using LPCM encoding (or other lossless or uncompressed formats)
  • 48khz
  • 24 bit stereo

All oral histories must be accompanied by a transcript for accessibility. Video oral histories should also include a Video Text Track (.vtt) file for closed captioning and a downloadable transcript in .docx format. There are several software programs that can generate VTT files. These programs use Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to transform audio into text. Transcripts and VTT files created by these programs should always be reviewed and revised by the oral historians to ensure the final transcript is as accurate as possible.

Oral histories must be submitted with appropriate metadata to provide researchers information about the oral history.

What is Metadata?

Metadata is the associated information about the recording that helps researchers determine whether the oral history contains information that is relevant to their research interests or questions. It also helps libraries organize and provide access to the recording.

Metadata elements should include:

• Date of oral history
• Name of narrator: their preferred name (e.g. if they use Bob rather than Robert) and their full given name.
• Name of interviewer, both preferred and full given
• Location of interview (city, county, and state)
• 500-word abstract describing the theme and key topics discussed in the oral history. Try to include as many names, places, and topical terms as possible.

How to Write and Abstract

An abstract is “A summary of the content of the resource.” It is also known as a Description. An abstract written for an oral history summarizes the topics covered in the interview. Its purpose is to give the user (i.e., readers, listeners, researchers) an idea of what the interview contains without providing detail of what the interviewee says.

To write an abstract:

1. Be succinct! The abstract is only a guide to the contents of the recording. Avoid unnecessary wordiness and editorial comments.
2. Write in the present tense when referring to the interview content and in third person.
3. Let the purpose of the oral history project guide the content of your abstract.
4. Use the five W’s. Be sure to answer the following questions:
   1. Who is the interviewee, and what makes them important?
   2. What did the interviewee talk about? Interviews usually, but not always, have a topical focus.
   3. Where did the interviewee talk about? Normally this is geographic places (countries, states, regions, etc.). The location of the interview is secondary to the “aboutness.”
   4. When are or were the events the interviewee describes?
   5. Why are they important to the topic of the oral history project?
   6. How does this interview relate to the others in the collection?
5. Begin with a sentence that introduces the interviewee, their birthplace (and birth date if present), and description of the oral history project.
6. Use the interviewee’s full name in the first sentence and then shorten it thereafter (first name or title and last name). Same for any organizations, businesses etc.
7. The body of the abstract should focus only on what is in the interview. It can include topics like defining characteristics, achievements, family description, education background, and previous and current occupations.
8. Use words like “explains,” “describes,” and “mentions,” to give the user an idea of what is included in the interview and how much material there is on a particular topic.
9. Quotes help to give an idea of how the interviewee speaks but should be used sparingly; you are not making a transcript.
10. 10. Be consistent—use the same spelling of names, organizations etc. across the collection if you are writing more than one abstract.
11. Thinking of the collection as a whole, ask yourself – “How important is this detail the overall context of the collection?”
12. End with points that were interesting but may not be central to the interview.