Automating Oral History: Best Tools for Transcribing Audio

When Rhonda first started writing people’s stories, she was appalled by how time-consuming and expensive it was to transcribe audio. She thought, “there has to be a better way,” so she went on a mission to find the best ways for different use cases. Technologies have made a step-function improvement in recent years, yet many family historians are unaware of how amazing and affordable the tools are. You will learn DIY methods that include: Real-time speech-to-text transcription; Uploading audio files to programs like Otter.Ai or HappyScribe; Zoom transcriptions (and how to remove the pesky timestamps from every line!); Transcribe: a free online tool that mimics a foot-pedal dictation machine; How to combine multiple transcripts into one long document for each searchability.