For the final project of LIBR 588 course: Theory and Practice of Oral History, in the University of British Columbia iSchool, my colleague, Derek Oxley and myself have worked on interviewing, editing, and transcribing an audio clip as part of an online exhibit, “Listening to the Earth”. The exhibit's main purpose is to document testimonies of nine experts and scientists answering the question: “How might we preserve stories about organisms for future generations?” The interviews examine interesting, funny, and sometimes sad, futures for nine organisms.
Cerceris rybyensis female foraging [Source: Line Sabroe on Flickr licensed under CC BY 4.0]
Our work involved researching the organisms (bees and pollinators), generating interview questions, interviewing prof. Claire Kremen, editing the interviews, and developing transcripts. The interviewed expert, Prof. Kremen, is Professor of Zoology and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, and President’s Excellence Chair in Biodiversity. Post interviewing work included sound editing the raw, one hour-long, interview to produce two versions of different lengths (90 seconds, and 15 minutes). I have also worked on transcribing the entire interview and carving out time-stamped transcripts that corresponds to the two edited clips for publishing purposes. The 3-minutes clip transcript can be found here.
Learning Significance