Digitization & encoding
The HistoryMakers interviews are recorded on Sony Betacam SP videocassettes, an analog format for professional video recording. Each analog 30-minute Beta SP videotape from the 400 selected interviews was digitized and encoding as a separate MPEG-1 video file which was saved on The HistoryMakers file server. Video technicians checked on problems reported by cataloguers and made changes such as audio boosting, color correction or re-encoding. All files were transferred to Informedia where their staff viewed the video files using their software and worked with technicians at The HistoryMakers to optimize quality.

Transcription
Transcription of the 400 interviews was outsourced to several transcription firms and individuals, according to standards in The HistoryMakers distributed the new Transcribers’ Manual , which was based on the Minnesota Historical Society's standards for oral history transcription. A text file was created to correspond with each digital video file of ca. 30 minutes.

Editing Transcripts
Over half of the 400 transcripts were proofread by volunteer proofreadersprior to further processing and cataloguing, in order to allow cataloguers at The HistoryMakers more time to concentrate on their other work.Proofreading work included auditing (listening to the interview and editing to make sure that the text matched the spoken words), checking and correcting spellings including names, editing the text to conform to style standards and adding some information to provide additional access points and enrich the transcripts. Additional info was set off by brackets to distinguish it from the spoken words. These references were used for such standard information as name completion (“Martin [Luther King, Jr.]”) locations (“Savannah [Georgia]”) and spelling-out of acronyms (“NCNW [National Council of Negro Women]”).

Cataloguing with Informedia's Segmentor
Informedia's 'Segmentor' application which was refined for The HistoryMakers during this project, allows manual editing and annotation of videos.The digital video file and its corresponding transcript text file are opened with the Segmentor application. Metadata for the files is added, and the video and text can be divided into segments which receive their own annotation. The metadata is saved as XML files maintaining the hierarchy of tape and segments

Segmenting
Informedia's 'Segmentor' application, which allows editing and annotation of videos. The interviews were divided at natural boundaries to create thematic video segments, for the dual purpose of defining annotation intervals and for their subsequent function as retrieval units. Within each tape-level “Project”, cataloguers used the Segmentor’s video editing controls to set “In” and “Out” points for each segment, averaging four to six minutes. The section of transcript corresponding to that portion of video was inserted in the Segment Transcript Window, and the segment was assigned a title that would quickly give the user an idea of what is contained in that segment. The segment transcript, title and codes defining segment boundaries for each segment in the video are saved under the “Project” metadata in one XML file.

Indexing
The individual segments, averaging 3-5 minutes, were indexed by dates, topics and locations using Library of Congress Subject Headings and Lorene Byron Brown’s Subject Headings for African American Materials. In some cases, because of indexing at such a fine level (a few minutes of an oral history interview), more specificity was needed and The HistoryMakers found it necessary to create its own local index terms. Project fellows selected indexing terms for each segment from a drop-down list in the Segmentor, linked to a text file located on The HistoryMakers' server. ( Initially a flat, strictly alphabetical list, this was later re-arranged in a hierarchical structure that allowed cataloguers to look within general categories to find index terms, and enabled the later transfer of this list into a hierarchical subject browse search.).