Guidelines for Submitting Audio Recordings to the MVZ
Below you will find detailed instructions on how to prepare and curate your own audio recordings so that they can be added to the MVZ collection. It is recommended that you read this before your start to take your recordings so that you can take good recordings, and complete tasks as you go, thus saving yourself from long periods of mind numbing tedium in the future.
What you will be giving to the MVZ
The MVZ sound collection consists of original tapes, reels, or digital recordings, and the resulting digital cuts that are made from the originals. This document assumes that new recordings will be in digital format. All original data (e.g., field notes, recording logs) will be deposited along with the recordings so that they can be added to the MVZ Archives. In addition, you will also be creating a spreadsheet that contains all of the metadata for each recording (cut) that will be uploaded to the MVZ database Arctos. Before you leave it is important that you make an appointment with the Staff Curator to accession your material and upload all of your data to Arctos. Depending on the size of your collection, this could take several meetings.
What is a cut
A cut represents a unique recording event. Examples of recording events include an individual bird singing a bout of songs, or a unique single species flock vocalizing together. For example if you record a bird singing throughout the morning, then all recordings of that bird made during the morning will represent a single cut. If there is ambiguity in the identity of the bird, then the recordings should be split into different cuts. For example, if you record a bird in the morning and then come back and record a bird singing in the same place later that day, then the recordings should be split into two cuts unless the bird is marked or banded in such a way that you can make a positive identification.
Cuts should be recorded in mono and saved as digital files in the WAV format. Cut files should follow the naming convention:
recordist last name_date_genus initial species name consecutive number 1-n_initials fieldnumber (if collected)
ex: Feo_12Jun2009_Canna15.wav
ex: Cicero_9Jun2009_Pmaculatus1_CC3660.wav
The first cut will be numbered 1 and then number the rest of the cuts consecutively in order to ensure no files are given the same name. If a cut continues onto more than one track or tape, then you need to splice them together into one file. If a track or tape contains more than one cut then you need to split them up into separate files. You can use programs such as Raven or Audacity to work with digital sound recordings. Audacity is free and can be found at Audacity (https://www.audacityteam.org).
Cuts typically represent one specific individual of a species. In general the species and individual will be your target bird, and all other species present and vocalizing will be listed under background vocals. If you have more than one target species, or target individual vocalizing at the same time, then you will make multiple copies of the same recording so that each species has its own cut. For example, if you record a male/female pair both vocalizing together and then collect both you will create two copies of the recording and assign each a separate cut number so that you can attach information about the male to one, and info about the female to the second. Other types of recordings such as soundscapes also can be donated to the MVZ, but these will be treated differently because they represent collecting events with multiple identifications on a single recording.
What to say on your recordings
In the same way that it is necessary to take good field notes about specimens to make them useful for future generations of scientists, this is also true of sound recordings. Recordings that have no date or locality are essentially useless and we have not curated many of the tapes and reels in the original MVZ sound collection because they had no dictations or field notes to go along with them. At minimum you should be stating the following on your recordings in case your notes go missing.
This information should be stated every time you start a new digital track (since this corresponds to creating a new and separate file), and whenever the information changes. At the start of a new recording, DO NOT simply state "locality and date same as previous track/tape" since the information will be lost in the event that the previous recording is lost.
Each time you begin a new cut you should state the following
As before this information needs to be stated every time you start a new recording(since this corresponds to creating a new and separate file), and whenever the information changes. At the start of a new recording, DO NOT simply state "same bird as recorded in previous track" since the information will be lost in the event that the previous recording is lost.
Feel free to add any additional information you think will provide context to the recording, such as naming the species vocalizing in the background, describing what the subject is doing (such as "the bird is performing backflips while singing"), noting the source of excessive background noise (such as "it is very windy today” or “I am standing under an overpass"), or reasons why the subject has switched vocalizations (such as "a hawk has flown in and the bird has switched to alarm calls"). In general you want to provide enough information to remove ambiguity so that people in the future can listen to your recordings and understand the basics of what is going on, without having to refer to your notes.
What metadata goes with a Cut
Metadata for each cut should be entered into the MVZ Audio Data Entry Template Spreadsheet, which will be used to upload the information into Arctos. Yellow highlighted columns are required.
https://mvzhandbook.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/46/2020/04/MVZ_Audio_Data_Entry_Template_20200416.xlsx
You can also use a field data entry form for audio metadata (designed to print onto archival paper for standard MVZ field notebook).
https://mvzhandbook.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/46/2020/02/FieldDocs_Audio_Field_Catalog.pdf