Sunday 6 October 2019

Me, Myself, and A Boatload of City Directories

City directories have always been something I for some reason or other, find joy in. Often when doing research in an archive I feel like a detective in a very strange and non-crime solving way. With the city directories you get to learn so much information on something extremely specific; be that a name, or address, and that information can then branch out in so many wonderful ways. I wanted to start this blog with speaking to my experience at ARCC. Friday was my first experience with the archive on campus, and it was great.  Obviously some procedures are a little different than what I'm used to, but it's pretty well the same. That is.. except for the microfilm reader. I have grown to know the microfilm reader and program that I've used for the past 4ish years, and it may take me some time to get used to a whole new setup. Technology and I get along when we need to, but not all the time, I'll speak more to that once I get to talking about finalizing my podcast. 

The house that I am researching for our heritage project was extremely simple in relation to the city directories, and even the tax assessments. Only 8 people were listed as owning the property between 1916 -2013. That can either work well in my favour by giving as shorter list of potential historically significant people, or it can mean that no person of significance lived at my address (which is fine, not everybody needs to be historically significant). While the city directories were great, the fire insurance plans were not uh the kindest of resource to my project. My property is basically just off the radar for the city limits and even at some points it seems purposeful that it isn't there. But, that wont really stop me from finding the fire insurance plan that it is on. 

Visiting ARCC was great, and as Jack Sheppard from Lost famously once said "We have to go back...", and I will be back again!


Our podcasts were due on Wednesday, October 2nd. My experience with Audacity and editing my podcast was probably very similar to other's. The hours I put in trying to make sure my different sound clips were not going all over the map with their sound levels, and finding them was also an issue that I cannot wait to explain. Okay, I'll wait for you to be seated. Are you seated? Okay, so, I am a man who is very set in his ways when it comes to technology (see above mention of microfilm readers for reference). It isn't that I don't know how to use new technology, or that I don't want to try new technologies. I just simply find what works for me and then do not, for any reason, wish to change. I was trying to find some short sounds to rip from YouTube and use in my podcast. Perfectly simple, I just find the mp3 converter that I used to use in Jr. High. Simple enough, except that every Tom, Dick, and Harry now have their own website that'll do this for you and the program no longer exists (to my knowledge). I, being the technologically sedentary man that I am, refused to give the websites any satisfaction from me downloading something off of their website. So, I went to plan C, skipped B because that was just me making any extra sounds with my voice and anything in my apartment. Plan C was to use OBS ( a recording software) to record the audio from any clip that I wanted to use. I would launch OBS, click record, and once it was finished I would convert the clip to mp3, and edit it before placing it into my final Podcast file. The thing is, it took some extra time downloading and updating OBS and figuring out the process of getting it to Audacity, but it worked.

Through and through my experiences with class/class work, are great. They are challenging me and making me think of different ways of doing things. Editing audio may not be my bread and butter, but it may be some really funky food find that you stumble upon and throw it in your cart. You may not enjoy it as much as bread and butter, but if you see it 3 months later you may pick it up again and go "yeah, sure this is pretty good" .


p.s. Here is the mess of files that I created and neatly placed for the purpose of this screenshot. This does not include the sticky notes sprawled across my desk or the page covered front to back in ideas and the breakdown of the Gaelic words that I had to say.  


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