Oral History Project - Memories of Nursing

[AberdeenMuseums]

Francis,
       
I wish you every success in this venture and as you are actively involved I trust you might be able to help me.

I'm a member of Northern Ireland RCN History Forum and we have a lot of audio tapes of oral histories. I'd like your opinion on 2 issues namely; -

1.   What best way to digitalise these old audio tapes, so they can be stored, kept on computer (and my aim eventually would be to make available on RCN website at some stage)?

2.   I now need to replace ALL old audio cassette recorders and would appreciate advice on replacement so future oral histories can be digitalised etc. What you using and its cost, etc??

Would value your comments, suggestions and recommendations.

Thanks

Eric

Eric,

The best place for advice is probably the Oral History Society - http://www.oralhistory.org.uk/.

We have digitised our audio tapes but the actual tapes will probably outlast any digital format (try to keep them sonewhere cool and dry).  We hold a .wav file on an external hard drive for long term preservation (this is not accessed or used) and use an mp3 file for any playing or transcription - normally I have several mp3 files as well, one on CD not to be used (as a backup) and one that I use for transcription, playing etc.

Yours,

Jenny