Stichting Historisch Katendrecht
Was the Stichting Historisch Katendrecht planning to create and audio guide before they knew about iTour?
Yes, initially I tried it with the NAI app, but that is a flawed program, plus, anyone can add texts to it from any place on Earth. Then I got in touch with the Province of Noord-Holland, which had put Amsterdam and Haarlem, among other cities, into a really nice app. Due to opposition from our ‘parent’ association, the Historical Society Roterodamum (which is the “parent” of the Foundation SRivD = Rotterdam is vele Dorpen [=Rotterdam is many Villages], which, in turn, the Stichting Historisch Katendrecht is associated with) I was unable to get the financing for it, so the tip from our city archivist turned out to be very helpful.
What kinds of problems did the Stichting Historisch Katendrecht run into?
Problems? There were no real problems. In terms of creation, I had already had everything worked out for some time, which makes sense for someone who wants to set up an informative website (= www.historischkatendrecht.nl). Of course, I did have to get used to the app. Although it is constructed in a logical way, it takes some experience before you can use it properly. In particular, removing route lines was a bit of a headache. As you know, I decided at one point to just start from scratch and that’s when it really started to take off. In terms of maintenance, I made it easy for myself and concentrated mainly on the past: after all, that doesn’t change very often. That is why I included very little of the hotel industry and few detail lists and where I did include these it was often with just a general reference.
How many employees worked on the creation of the audio guide?
Just myself. All together, I probably spent about 90 hours on it.
What was it like to record the audio? Were there any difficulties?
Recording the audio? I did that with a simple Sony IC Recorder ICD-UX512. I read the texts in one item at a time and didn’t exhaust myself by editing everything afterwards. Whenever I made a mistake while reading it in, I would just do that item over again: that all went pretty fast. After that, I put the audio onto my iMAc and from there into the app.
How much time did you spend on recording the audio?
Most of the work was to meticulously write out the texts that had to be read in. But once that was done, the actual reading in (including the occasional re-take) only took about one hour.
How is the new audio guide being received by the public?
During the construction I already had frequent contact with a number of people; to check whether the texts were easy to understand, whether my voice sounded okay, or I should use other voices and whether the app was being activated in the right places at Katendrecht. After the app was airborne, I got only positive reactions from all sides (and not because they necessarily like me so much on a personal level).
What advice would the Stichting Historisch Katendrecht like to give to other museums/organizations with respect to the creation of an audio tour?
If people have less experience with computers, AV presentations, etc., and they don’t have a strong drive to do a really good job, they’re better off to outsource the audio tour creation to iTour (provided they have the funds available for that, of course). But if a company wants to do it themselves – and this can be a lot of fun (and, of course, the material ultimately all has to come from their own organization anyway) – I’d say: practise first and create a small test audio version based on whatever knowledge and experience they have, before creating the ‘real’ tour. In addition, it is gratifying to be able to revert back to iTours. My advice at this time would be for organizations to fully take advantage of that opportunity and probably also to take the training offered by iTour (although that’s not what I did).
In which ways is the ‘Katendrecht Rotterdam’ tour being promoted?
Promoted? Well, of course, on our own website, both on the home page and on the page with the walking routes. In addition, the walking route is going to be on the website www.srivd.nl, which is being developed and there is a reference to it on the printed map of the SRivD walking route. Plus, this tour is mentioned in various places as something special.
