Archiving Interview Recordings and Oral Histories

An interview recording is one of the richest records an archive can hold and one of the easiest to lose. The file format goes out of date, the drive fails, the consent form is in a different box, and nobody remembers who the second voice on the tape was. Good practice comes down to four things: a preservation master in an open format, a separate access copy, full descriptive metadata, and the consent and rights paperwork stored with the recording.

Masters and access copies

Keep the highest-quality version you have as the preservation master and never edit it. For audio, uncompressed WAV is the usual choice; for video, a widely supported, well-documented format at the original resolution. Then make an access copy, a smaller compressed file, for listening, sharing and transcription. If the access copy is damaged or edited, you make another from the master. Our guide to file formats that last covers the trade-offs.

Metadata: what the file cannot tell you

A recording on its own is nearly useless in twenty years. Record, for each interview:

• Interviewee and interviewer names, and anyone else present
• Date, place, and the project or collection it belongs to
• Duration, format, equipment, and who made the master
• Language(s) spoken
• A short summary and a list of topics or names mentioned, ideally with timestamps
• Any sections that are restricted, and why
• The consent reference and the access conditions that apply

This is the record that makes the recording findable. See why metadata matters for the general principle.

Consent and rights travel with the recording

The question you will be asked most often is not "what does it say?" but "can we use it?". The answer lives in the consent form and any rights agreement: whether the interview can be published, quoted, played in public, used for research only, or closed for a period. Store those documents with the recording, not in a separate filing cabinet, and note the conditions in the metadata so nobody has to read the form to know. If an interviewee later withdraws or narrows consent, record that too, with the date. For consent practice in research settings, see consent forms that survive an audit.

Transcripts

A transcript makes a recording searchable, but it is a derivative, not a replacement. Note who made it, when, and whether it was checked against the audio or approved by the interviewee. Keep it linked to the recording and mark any redactions. Machine transcripts are a useful start; mark them as unchecked until someone has listened through.

Storage and checking

• At least two copies of every master, in different places.
• A periodic check that the files still open and have not changed. A checksum recorded at ingest makes this simple.
• A plan to migrate formats when one starts to become obsolete.
• Access controls matched to the sensitivity: some oral histories contain health, family or political details that should not sit on an open drive.

Physical carriers

Tapes, minidiscs and old camcorder cassettes are degrading now. Prioritise digitising them, keep the originals after transfer unless you have a documented reason not to, and record the transfer itself: date, equipment, who did it, any problems heard. That transfer note is part of the recording's history.