A Technological Aside (And Some Personal Statistics)

As I wrap up this set of transcriptions, I've encountered a new challenge:  making the technology work.  I've been closely monitoring my time spent on each interview and noting where the delays occur.  My poor computer, while up to standard for SLIS/MLIS, seems to be having some difficulty with these longer interviews. While I work, I have two windows open: MS Word (where the transcription happens) and iTunes (where the interview gets played back).  What I found was that there was significant lag between hitting pause in iTunes and then switching to MS Word to type in the three to five words.

In order to alleviate this, I conducted part of the transcriptions snuggled down on the cough (in a very unprofessional and yet very comfortable position) with my iPod balanced on my chest and my netbook on my lap (my mother would have been ashamed of my posture).  While typing in a less than upright position can be tricky while balancing a computer on your knees, there was significantly less time spent on waiting for my computer to catch up, no matter how little time was actually spent.

Also, taking breaks have become essential, not just for me but also for my computer.  A few hours after switching back to my computer for both listening and typing (the constant pause/play required to successfully transcribe significantly reduces the battery life of your MP3 player) my computer seemed to have had enough.  I would hit pause on iTunes and nothing would happen.  The people would keep talking and I would have to hit pause several times before the player stopped leaving me to scroll back to where I'd originally intended to stop.  I found that letting the computer restart seemed to alleviate this problem.

Some small recommendations (mostly for myself, but also for anyone who happens across this and is transcribing things):
- Beware the forward/backward/fast-forward/rewind buttons on your MP3 player.  I had to click VERY carefully to get my MP3 player to move back a few seconds in the recording.  There were a lot of times where I'd accidentally not hold the button down long enough and end up at the previous track or the next track.  Returning to your spot, especially mid-track of an hour-long interview can be tedious on a small device where you have to hold the fast-forward button until you get to where you want to go.
- My USB-to-wall charger for my cellphone (HTC) also works for my iPod.  It may no be recommended, but hey, Apple doesn't give you the little brick any more and to save money, you improvise.  (Plugging in to the computer just ends up with it locking you out and trying to sync.)
- Unlike other homework, this isn't something that you (me) can do at Starbucks.  It's just near impossible with my set-up to hear what's being said.  People tend to speak quickly and sometimes their words run together or they speak over each other (interviews are conversations after all) and then your recorded interview voices run together with those two girls sitting at the next table gossiping about their friend and you lose too many important words.

Time Totals:

• Interview 1:
• Recorded time: 16 mins.
• Transcription time: 2h 40m
• Interview 2:
• Recorded time: 1 hour.
• Transcription time: 7 hours.
• Interview 3:
• Recorded time: 50 mins.
• Transcription time: 4h 40m

I found the significant variations in transcribing Interviews 2 and 3 were based on the speech patterns of the people being interviewed.  While the subject in Interview 3 spoke slowly (most of the time) with minimal 'you know's and 'um's and other speech tics, the subject in Interview 2 spoke quickly, sometimes running words together and there was significantly more talking over each other between interviewer and interviewee.  There were also many more words said in the second interview which left me going back and forth a lot trying to pick up first what one person said then the other.