Half Day

I was only in for a half day today but I did add some more content to Julian Newman's selection. Check it out on VoiceThread.com. Much more to do tomorrow!

Thanks!

The Julian Newman Epic

The oral history for Julian Newman is huge! It spans four disks and is at least 4 hours long! I'm just finishing the first disk today, so I should be able to finish his section up sometime next week. He selection on VoiceThread.com is definitely going to be the largest section we will upload until we figure out how we are going to upload the entire oral history to our archives.

I am really happy with the audio quality and the crisp voices that narrate this oral history. I think this section is going to be the best one thus far! Here is another photo for today that shows another section of Sun Valley Road in 1910:

Thanks for checking in! See you all Tuesday at 5-6 PM PST.

Media Management

Today was a big day for managing the data this project has accumulated thus far. I started today off by copying some disks as part of a side project for the department. Then I decided it was about time to go through all of the uploads on VoiceThread to check for any errors or problems with any of the media files uploaded so far. Comment if you see an issue that I should address. After that I started working on Julian Newman's oral histories. There are four disks so it may take quite a while to get through everything. Keep checking back and I should have something for you next week.

Our Regional History Librarian is home sick today and will hopefully be back either tomorrow or sometime next week. She just started a few new prescriptions to help her recover from her surgery.

Here is your weekly photo to enjoy:

See you all tomorrow!

A New Section Featuring Clyde Bacon

There is a new section up on VoiceThread.com featuring Clyde Bacon! What is available currently is the around a third of his entire oral history (still a section of decent size). The rest of his oral history with Miriam Breckenridge was transferred poorly and the quality is not high enough to justify uploading on VoiceThread. It will get re-transferred and edited in the future to be uploaded in its entirety with the rest of our processed oral history archive.

This issue with the poor transfer was my troubleshooting difficulty of the day. When I opened up the audio file the audio levels were at a very low decibel, so I boosted the audio to match the other disks we have in our selection. When I went back through to check that there were no distortions in the boost, I noticed that the audio levels were bouncing, fading, and picking up a lot of noise disruptions. I messed with the file for an hour or so and determined that the files were not going to reach the quality of the other sound files.

Here is another daily picture for your enjoyment:

I am really happy of how this picture turned out! When I first looked at this picture it had big tears and holes in the middle of the picture and bordering the frame. After an hour or so of editing colors and masking damaged areas, I was able to produce this nicely restored picture.

See you all tomorrow!

Robert Elliott and Wool Production

I uploaded a new section to VoiceThread.com today featuring Robert Elliott. Robert Elliott got involved with wool production in the 1950s after serving in the war. He learned how to get pretty good at his work and it is great to hear him talk about his trade. He has some great stories so check him out asap if you want some cheap entertainment! Hey, you might even learn something about your history and/or heritage.

Today was pretty quiet in the Regional History Department. However, I do work in the corner with headphones on... Here's another photo for today:

See you all tomorrow!

Rink Williams' Oral History

Today was a very productive first day of the week for me. I got Rink Williams' section online on VoiceThread.com today. Rink was in the sheep business starting in the 1950s and when he was interviewed by Miriam Breckenridge in the late 1970s he had a very good handle of the business. He has an interesting perspective on the business and politics of the early Wood River Valley.

Starting today and continuing tomorrow I will be working on Robert and Carol Elliott's oral history with Miriam. I'll keep everyone posted through Twitter, Facebook, and here on the blog. Here is another photo for today. Sorry I wasn't able to post one yesterday due to time constraints.

I run into all sorts of audio problems everyday when I am working with these oral histories. I had a problem today with the Elliott's stereo recording where the stereo would fade in and out. Stereo has two audio tracks, one for the left speaker and one for the right speaker. The issue had the right and left speaker fading out interchangeably. This is a very difficult issue to fix because just combining the two tracks into one and splitting that track into two duplicated tracks just makes both the speakers fade out half as much. I'm going to have to research this issue further.

The other audio problem I have been having off and on is a problem with audio that has the ghost of an audio track over the top of it. I'm not sure if this was a technical issue with the recording equipment or an issue when the recording was moved to the CDs that we have in our collection. In any case, this issue needs to be carefully edited around and sometimes there is just nothing that I can do to save the intended audio track and sections just have to be avoided.

Thanks for stopping in today. Have a great week and keep checking in daily.

VoiceThread is back up

Rink Williams' oral history is a difficult one to progress through but you should be able to enjoy it sometime next week. VoiceThread is back online although we aren't totally sure what happened to make it go down. It still shouldn't be an issue. I worked a short day today and will have much more to post next week. Have a good weekend and see you all on Tuesday!