The Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS) is a web application designed to enhance online access to oral history interviews. OHMS was originally designed and created by the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries in 2008 for deployment through the Kentucky Digital Library. In 2011, the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History received a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services to make the system open source and free to use with interoperability and sustainability as the primary goals. According to the Nunn Center, "The primary purpose for OHMS is to empower users to more effectively and efficiently discover information in an oral history interview online by connecting the user from a search result to the corresponding moment in an interview." [1]
OHMS is a two-part system which includes the web app (the back-end) and the viewer (user interface). The web application is used to prepare the oral history interview by embedding timecode into a transcript or creating a time-coded index of the interview, which is then viewable online in the OHMS Viewer, accessible from the archive's chosen content management system. "The programme enables researchers to search through an oral history recording using keywords, and to be taken to the exact moment that the keyword is spoken. It means researchers do not have to scroll through hours of tape or pages of transcript before finding the topic they are interested in." [2]
The original version of OHMS synchronized transcribed text with time code in the audio/video, as well as providing a user map/viewer that connected search results of a transcript to the corresponding moments in the audio or video. OHMS designer Doug Boyd writes, "OHMS inexpensively and efficiently encodes transcripts of interviews and then connects the transcripts to the corresponding moments in the audio or video interview." [3]
In 2011, the Nunn Center introduced the Interview Indexing Module which allows indexing or annotation of an interview that corresponds to time-code. In his article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Brad Wolverton writes about Doug Boyd's work on OHMS: "Through his work as director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History he’s developed a method for indexing audio and video recordings, making it easy for researchers to call up precise words without having to listen to endless hours of tape." [4] In the Fall of 2011, the Institute for Museum and Library Services awarded the Nunn Center a National Leadership Grant of$195,853 to further develop OHMS for open source distribution. [5] OHMS is currently being developed and the grant initiative is working with project partners to implement the system beyond the University of Kentucky.
OHMS Viewer: synchronized transcript
OHMS Viewer: synchronized transcript + interview index
OHMS Viewer: bilingual (synchronized transcript + translation)
According to the Nunn Center's OHMS Website:
2005: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History and UK Libraries' Digital Program begin digitization and online access to oral histories. Team: Eric Weig, Kathryn Lybarger, Kopana Terry [6]
2008: Only 50 interviews uploaded using the manual system. UK Libraries Hires Dr. Doug Boyd as Director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History. Boyd and Weig design system, work with contract programmer Dr. Jack Schmidt to implement initial version of OHMS. Team: Doug Boyd, Eric Weig, Jack Schmidt. [7]
2009: UK Libraries' programmer Dr. Michael Slone works with Boyd and Weig to further develop OHMS and prepare initial functional specification. Team: Doug Boyd, Eric Weig, Michael Slone. [8]
2011: Nunn Center outsources development of OHMS to Artifex Technology Consulting. Rewrites code completely, adds Indexing Module, adds support for video. Team: Doug Boyd, Eric Weig, Michael Slone, Artifex Technology Consulting. [9]
2011: Receives Grant from Institute for Museum and Library Services [10]
2012: Programmer James Howard hired to develop OHMS and prepare for distribution. Team: Doug Boyd, Eric Weig, James Howard. [11]
2013: OHMS application made accessible to grant partners. Team: Doug Boyd, Eric Weig, James Howard. [12]
2014: OHMS Application and viewer updates include YouTube compatibility, major upgrades to the Interview Manager.
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who participated in or observed past events and whose memories and perceptions of these are to be preserved as an aural record for future generations. Oral history strives to obtain information from different perspectives and most of these cannot be found in written sources. Oral history also refers to information gathered in this manner and to a written work based on such data, often preserved in archives and large libraries. Knowledge presented by Oral History (OH) is unique in that it shares the tacit perspective, thoughts, opinions and understanding of the interviewee in its primary form.
Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for All the King's Men (1946) and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958 and 1979. He is the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry.
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