Processing and Next Steps

What is Metadata? 

The Oral History Association defines metadata as: "Information about aspects of an oral history interview; it is essential for the curating, discovery, and management of a collection or interview."

Thre are three types applicable to oral histories: 

• Descriptive metadata is information about the interviewer, interviewee, topic, location, date/time, medium, or other facets of the conversation. 
• Techincal metadata refers to information about the digital file or physical medium that contains the interview. 
• Administrative metadata is information about rights management and other concepts relating to the use, preservation, and access of the interview.

Metadata and Interview Processing

You can easily save the metadata when working on your own oral history with a spreadsheet. Save your metadata along with the project files for eventual transfer to the archives along with all other documentation. You can save different kinds of media in different spreadsheets but it’s not necessary to create a new file to go along with every item collected. The following is a list of recommended fields:

• Text documents
  • File name*, department name, project name, title, author name, date, file type (DOCX, PDF, etc.), file size
• Photographs
  • File name, department name, project name, photographer’s name (if known), brief description of content, subject(s), location, date, file type (JPG, TIF, etc.), file size
• Audio
  • File name, department name, project name, title, interviewee name, interviewer name (if appropriate), location, date, file type (WAV, MP3, etc.), file size
• Video
  • File name, department name, project name, title, interviewee name, interviewer name (if appropriate), location, date, file type (MPEG, MOV, etc.), file size

*You should develop a set of file naming conventions so files can be easily sorted and accessed. If you would like assistance or advice about this, please contact us at eswain@illinois.edu or (217) 333-7841.