Week 2: Diving into the Farm Series

My second week with Vermont Folklife has gotten off to an immersive start. I have been spending much of my time listening to the Farm Series audio and attempting to keyword what I am hearing. This part is a collaboration between Andy Kolovos (VT Folklife's Archivist) and me. What I have learned through this process thus far is that keywording is more complicated than I originally thought. The word that I choose to describe a specific topic may be different than the word chosen by someone else to describe the same topic. To address this issue, the Library of Congress actually created a controlled vocabulary—a standardized set of keywords to describe specific things: Library of Congress Subject Headings. After I go through each tape and come up with some keywords as well as notes to explain my thought process, Andy can then review my work and translate my summaries into standard Library of Congress terms.

Another piece of this project has been correcting the original transcripts of the recordings. Many of the original transcripts were done manually and have some mistakes throughout. As I listen to the audio, I follow along in the transcript and correct mistakes that I spot. I have also been making slight adjustments in formatting to standardize the transcripts as well as making them more readable. With keywording and correction put together, this process can take several hours per interview to complete, but I am finding it really enjoyable. As a Vermonter, the stories I get to hear in this collection range from familiar and comforting to new-to-me and fascinating. The Farm Series is a large collection, and I’m really looking forward to this project being a through