They can be used to piece together information of the past, making them valuable resources for historians. However, it has been difficult to provide access to these materials because the recordings themselves are not always searchable. This means historians would have to search through or listen to a vast amount of information ( in this case, oral histories) in order to find a topic they’re looking for, which can be both time consuming and often futile. This is why the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History created the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS).
The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries collects and preserves oral histories in order to make oral histories more readily available and easily searchable. They specialize in various aspects of Kentucky history, but they allow for this system to be used by scholars who request an account. The Brown Media Archives has successfully utilized this resource with the Richard Nixon-Frank Gannon interviews, and we now hope to use it for The Andrew Avery Collection.
The challenge for this project in using OHMS is that most of these films are silent, so we have had to alter the original purpose of OHMS in order to meet the demands of making this collection searchable. OHMS has two options for entering metadata: an index and a transcript. The index will provide keywords, which are alternative search terms that were not initially in the shot list so that the options for searching for topics is broadened rather than being reliant on a strict vocabulary that was used in the shot lists. It also uses a partial transcript in which we are putting portions of the shot lists for the relevant segments (the entire shot list is broken down into categories of what is being depicted as time progresses). Lastly, we are inputting a segment synopsis, which I have used to create a short description of the types of things depicted in the individual segments. There are other option that can be used in the index, such as Library of Congress subject headings and a GPS, but we have decided that those are not necessarily applicable to the work we are trying to accomplish within the span of this project. The transcript will contain the full shot lists rather than cut up segments transcript will provide times (organized by one minute intervals) within the text so you can play particular segments of video if you are interested in something when browsing through the shot list. A good example of both of these is both in the Nixon-Gannon interviews, but also in this interview with Martin Luther King, Jr. that I found on the Louie B. Nunn Center’s website. The interface for the OHMS player is easily navigable and is easy to search through, which is a great advantage to those who are new at researching oral histories, or even those who require ease of use in their research endeavors. This resource is free to use, and you may Request an OHMS Account if you’d like to use it. If you wish to learn more about indexing and transcripts, the Center has provided Tutorials and Guides pertaining to the OHMS system.
When the OHMS viewer for the Avery Collection is made ready and public, I will post the link to the The Andrew Avery Collection page under Home Movies as Historical Records.
Oral histories are important documentations from people about their personal experiences with history.
The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries collects and preserves oral histories in order to make oral histories more readily available and easily searchable. They specialize in various aspects of Kentucky history, but they allow for this system to be used by scholars who request an account. The Brown Media Archives has successfully utilized this resource with the Richard Nixon-Frank Gannon interviews, and we now hope to use it for The Andrew Avery Collection.
The challenge for this project in using OHMS is that most of these films are silent, so we have had to alter the original purpose of OHMS in order to meet the demands of making this collection searchable. OHMS has two options for entering metadata: an index and a transcript. The index will provide keywords, which are alternative search terms that were not initially in the shot list so that the options for searching for topics is broadened rather than being reliant on a strict vocabulary that was used in the shot lists. It also uses a partial transcript in which we are putting portions of the shot lists for the relevant segments (the entire shot list is broken down into categories of what is being depicted as time progresses). Lastly, we are inputting a segment synopsis, which I have used to create a short description of the types of things depicted in the individual segments. There are other option that can be used in the index, such as Library of Congress subject headings and a GPS, but we have decided that those are not necessarily applicable to the work we are trying to accomplish within the span of this project. The transcript will contain the full shot lists rather than cut up segments transcript will provide times (organized by one minute intervals) within the text so you can play particular segments of video if you are interested in something when browsing through the shot list. A good example of both of these is both in the Nixon-Gannon interviews, but also in this interview with Martin Luther King, Jr. that I found on the Louie B. Nunn Center’s website. The interface for the OHMS player is easily navigable and is easy to search through, which is a great advantage to those who are new at researching oral histories, or even those who require ease of use in their research endeavors. This resource is free to use, and you may Request an OHMS Account if you’d like to use it. If you wish to learn more about indexing and transcripts, the Center has provided Tutorials and Guides pertaining to the OHMS system.
When the OHMS viewer for the Avery Collection is made ready and public, I will post the link to the The Andrew Avery Collection page under Home Movies as Historical Records.
Oral histories are important documentations from people about their personal experiences with history.