Sound Directions: Digital Audio Preservation and Access for Global Audio Heritage

Sound Directions: Best Practices for Audio Preservation

This publication presents the results of research and development carried out by the Sound Directions project with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the U.S. Each chapter in this document is divided into two major parts: a preservation overview that summarizes key concepts for collection managers and curators, followed by a section intended for audio engineers, digital librarians, and other technical staff that presents recommended technical practices while summarizing our findings and experience.

Publication Download (PDF format, 5.52MB)

The appendices to the publication provide additional technical detail for those interested. There are five appendices:

• Appendix 1: Metadata Elements in the Audio Technical Metadata Collector (ATMC) (522KB)
• Appendix 2: XML Produced by Harvard's Audio Object Manager for Digital File Metadata (XML format - 6KB)
• Appendix 3: Sample Harvard METS Document (XML format - 565KB)
• Appendix 4: Sample Indiana METS Document (XML format - 133KB)
• Appendix 5: Software Tools in the Harvard Sound Directions Toolkit (96KB)

NOTE: Appendices two through four are examples of metadata documents in their raw XML form. Some web browsers will present this information in a separate window as text, revealing the structure of the document immediately. Some browsers will not and must be prompted to do so. In this case, please ensure that your web browser is set to "view source." You may also prefer to download the raw XML files and view them using XML editing software.