ITF ed. note: This resource guide was originally crafted by ITF Maggie Galvan for use in Professor Paul Moses’s 2015 Seminar 2 course where students were creating oral histories. Read the original post here.

In addition to the recorders that you can check out from Macaulay, which you used to record audio during the Night at the Museum last semester, you can also check out recorders from the Brooklyn College Library. However, you may want to use your smart phone to record audio. In fact, you may want to have both a recorder and your smart phone along, for, “Good standard practice is to always use two recorders, so that if one dies you have a running backup,” as ITF Stephen Boatright pointed out when the ITFs discussed this issue. Other good, practical advice for recording includes:

• test your device(s)/apps at home; asking yourself questions like:
  • Am I comfortable with how recording works, and do I know how close I need to be to get good sound?
  • Do I have my settings correctly configured (see below)?
  • Do I have enough space and battery life to record a 30 min.-1 hr. interview?
• do a test recording at the interview before you start the real interview so that you’re sure that both you and your interviewee are audible
• check in periodically during the interview to make sure your device is still recording
• make sure that your recording environment has as little background noise as possible. It’s easier to get a good recording in the first place rather than trying to correct it later.

While the recorders you can check out are fairly straight forward (and we can discuss this more!), when it comes to your smart phone, you may wonder: what app should I use? The following answers, suggestions, and resources come from the cohort of ITFs across the various Macaulay Honors College campuses. Continue reading →