Oral History Indexing

ABSTRACT

Oral history indexing (OHI) is a set of practices for audio/video content management that emerged with computer-based media. Through thematically defined passages within recordings, OHI provides electronically linked, timecode-level access to online oral history interviews and collections. Several institutions have developed multimedia OHI interfaces that, like an indexed book, allow cross-referencing to specific points within media documents, describe content through natural language, and promote browsing and exploring modes rather than literal text searching. This article describes the OHI work of seven pioneering institutions through case studies, highlighting a range of methodological approaches and system attributes. It also examines the phenomena of OHI through the lens of oral history best practices, discusses how emerging technologies such as automatic speech recognition will likely change oral history transcription practices and OHI, and suggests that the concepts and skills involved in OHI are applicable well beyond oral history and its content.

KEYWORDS:

• audio/video indexing
• content management
• OHMS
• thematic indexing
• timecoded transcripts

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Dr. Alan Rabideau, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He supported this writing in 2022-23 through a postdoctoral position and earlier as my PhD advisor and project principal investigator—a project in which I married oral history methods with environmental engineering research; the project was supported by the National Science Foundation: Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (INSPIRE), CBET-1344238. Michael Frisch was my employer, mentor, and PhD advisor and continues to be an inspiring peer and a partner working across diverse a/v indexing projects. Thanks to Judith Weiland and Melanie Morse from Randforce, and Andreas Fickers and Lar Wieneke at the University of Luxembourg. Brooke Bryan helped me develop the OHA panel in 2021, and her perspectives on OHI theory, practice, and philosophy always inspire. Thanks to Doug Boyd for creating OHMS and to Zack Ellis of TheirStory for his essential contributions to the design and realization of the first release of TIM (the Timecode Indexing Module). Many thanks to Janneken Smucker with the Oral History Review for the encouragement, support, and superb editorial work on this piece.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. Dennis Duncan, Index, a History of the (New York: W. W. Norton, 2021).

^2. Douglas Lambert et al., “Oral History Timecode Indexing and Annotation: Decisions behind an Emerging Art” (roundtable session, Oral History Association Annual Meeting, online/remote, October 12, 2021).

^3. Michael Frisch et al., “Oral History Curation in the Digital Age: A Framework for Choices and Planning,” Oral History in the Digital Age, 2012, https://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2012/06/oral-history-curation-in-the-digital-age/.

^4. “Best Practices,” Oral History in the Digital Age, 2012, https://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/best-practices/.

^5. Janneken Smucker, telephone (Zoom) communication with the author, June 8, 2023; Janneken Smucker, “Janneken Smucker: Teacher, Historian, Digital Specialist, Writer,” 2023, https://janneken.org; “Using OHMS with Omeka,” Oral History Metadata Synchronizer: Enhance Access for Free, 2023, https://www.oralhistoryonline.org/documentation/omeka/. As full disclosure, Smucker also worked closely with me in the developmental editing of this article. Open-source software means programmers and project managers offer computer code cost-free to a larger community, who are then welcome to modify that code at will and improve, integrate, or otherwise build upon the original product. The larger culture of “open source” is about communities of developers and projects sharing knowledge and tools openly, common in the digital humanities field.

^6. Mary A Larson, “‘The Medium Is the Message’: Oral History, Media, and Mediation,” Oral History Review 43, no. 2 (2016): 318-37, https://doi.org/10.1093/ohr/ohw052.

^7. While I define transcript synchronization and OHI as phenomena of modern, electronic forms, indexing did exist predigitally. Resettable counters on tape machines could be used to cross-reference contents at various points from paper indexes. A unique example of analog indexing in oral history in the early 1980s includes the work of Dale Treleven, who invented a mechanical indexing approach called the Timecode Access to Pertinent Excerpts (TAPE) system. TAPE embraced the concept of indexes/summaries and media-as-primary-source, circumventing transcripts; see Marjorie L. McLellan, “Beyond the Transcript: Oral History as Pedagogy,” in Oral History and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access, and Engagement, ed. Douglas A. Boyd and Mary A. Larson (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2014), 99-118.

^8. William Schneider, “A Jukebox Full of Stories,” Oral Tradition 28, no. 2 (2013): 299-306, https://doi.org/10.1353/ort.2013.0026.

^9. Douglas A. Boyd, “‘I Just Want to Click on It to Listen’: Oral History Archives, Orality, and Usability,” in Oral History and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access, and Engagement, ed. Douglas A. Boyd and Mary A. Larson (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2014), 77-96, https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137322029_5.

^10. Michael Frisch, “Oral History and the Digital Revolution: Toward a Post-Documentary Sensibility,” in The Oral History Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (New York: Routledge, 2006), 102-114; Michael Frisch and Douglas Lambert, “Between the Raw and the Cooked in Oral History: Notes from the Kitchen,” in The Oral History Handbook, 333-348.

^11. Douglas Lambert and Michael Frisch, “Digital Curation through Information Cartography: A Commentary on Oral History in the Digital Age from a Content Management Point of View,” Oral History Review 40, no. 1 (2013): 135-53, https://doi.org/10.1093/ohr/oht035; Douglas Lambert and Michael Frisch, “Meaningful Access to Audio and Video Passages: A Two-Tiered Approach for Annotation, Navigation, and Cross-Referencing within and across Oral History Interviews,” Oral History in the Digital Age, 2012, https://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2012/06/meaningful-access-to-audio-and-video-passages-2/; Frisch et al., “Oral History Curation Framework,” https://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2012/06/oral-history-curation-in-the-digital-age/; Michael Frisch with Douglas Lambert, “Mapping Approaches to Oral History Content Management in The Digital Age,” Oral History in the Digital Age, 2012, https://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2012/07/mapping/.

^12. Doug Boyd, “OHMS: Enhancing Access to Oral History for Free,” Oral History Review 40, no. 1 (2013): 99, https://doi.org/10.1093/ohr/oht031; Doug Boyd et al., “Indexing Interviews in OHMS: An Overview,” Oral History in the Digital Age, 2014, https://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2014/11/indexing-interviews-in-ohms/; “Oral History Metadata Synchronizer: Enhance Access for Free,” 2023, https://www.oralhistoryonline.org/;

^13. Linda Shopes, “Transcribing Oral History in the Digital Age,” Oral History in the Digital Age, 2012, https://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2012/06/transcribing-oral-history-in-the-digital-age/; Robert E. Warren et al., “Restoring the Human Voice to Oral History: The Audio-Video Barn Website,” Oral History Review 40, no. 1 (2013): 107-25, https://doi.org/10.1093/ohr/oht032; Janneken Smucker, Doug Boyd, and Charles Hardy III, “Connecting the Classroom and the Archive: Oral History, Pedagogy, and Goin’ North,” Oral History in the Digital Age, 2017, https://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2017/02/connecting-the-classroom-and-the-archive-oral-history-pedagogy-goin-north/; “Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project,” 2023, https://densho.org.

^14. Douglas Lambert, Oral History Timecode Indexing and Annotation: Decisions behind an Emerging Art, Oral History Association (via the Aviary platform), October 12, 2021, video/multimedia, https://oralhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1682/collection_resources/53215 (henceforth referred to as “OHA 2021 Video”).

^15. See a supplemental document at the OHR website where I describe two ASR transcripts and three indexes I made for the OHA 2021 event/video: “Oral History Indexing: Supplemental Content and Timecode Tool Examples,” Oral History Review, https://oralhistoryreview.org/lambert-ohi/.

^16. This section composed and edited based on OHA 2021 Video, [00:08:39] and [00:39:49] (Crispin Brooks’ presentations); Crispin Brooks, email conversation with the author, Feb 17, 2021–June 29, 2022; “USC Shoah Foundation: The Institute for Visual History and Education,” 2023, https://sfi.usc.edu/.

^17. “The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive,” 2023, https://vha.usc.edu/home; “IWITNESS,” 2023, iwitness.usc.edu; “USC Shoah Foundation: The Institute for Visual History and Education,” 2023, sfi.usc.edu.

^18. OHA 2021 Video, [01:38:50]; https://oralhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1682/collection_resources/53215/file/125385?t=5930.

^19. This section composed and edited based on OHA 2021 Video, [00:30:00] and [00:53:00] (Doug Boyd’s presentations); Boyd, “‘I Just Want to Click on It to Listen’”; University of Kentucky Libraries, “OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer) User Guide, Version 3.8.3,” 2023, https://www.oralhistoryonline.org/documentation/; Doug Boyd, email and telephone conversation with the author, June 13, 2023; Doug Boyd, in-person and telephone conversations about OHMS and OHI with the author, 2009-2023.

^20. University of Kentucky Libraries, OHMS Viewer, computer software, 2023, https://github.com/uklibraries/ohms-viewer.

^21. Select the “Play Interview” tab, here: “Collins, Beulah, Interview by Charles Hardy, III. August 01, 1983,” Goin’ North: Tales of the Great Migration Oral History Project, University of Kentucky Libraries, https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/ark:/16417/xt77sq8qfn6s.

^22. See “Featured Examples,” Oral History Metadata Synchronizer: Enhance Access for Free, 2023, https://www.oralhistoryonline.org/partners/.

^23. Select the Play Interview tab to access the OHMS Viewers for these projects: “Collins, Beulah, Interview by Charles Hardy, III. August 01, 1983,” Goin’ North: Tales of the Great Migration Oral History Project, University of Kentucky Libraries, https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/ark:/16417/xt77sq8qfn6s; “Interview with Barbara Hudson, October 18, 2021,” 1964 Civil Rights March on Frankfort (Kentucky) Oral History Project, University of Kentucky Libraries, https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/ark:/16417/xt71gphswgm0q.

^24. “OHMS Indexing Levels: Level 1,” University of Kentucky Libraries, 2023, video, https://www.youtube.com/c/nunncenter; Smucker et al., “Connecting the Classroom and the Archive.”

^25. OHA 2021 Video, [01:13:07]; https://oralhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1682/collection_resources/53215/file/125385?t=4387.

^26. This section composed and edited based on the author’s direct experience as a former employee of and ongoing collaborator with Randforce, and a review of this section by Michael Frisch on June 9, 2023.

^27. Michael Haller (formerly of Documat, LLC) developed Interclipper. It is no longer commercially available, but it is available for research purposes through me.

^28. Lambert and Frisch, “Meaningful Access.”

^29. Douglas Lambert, “Timecode Indexing Module: Creating Multimedia Access to Oral History,” Thinkering, Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH), blog, 2020, https://www.c2dh.uni.lu/thinkering/timecode-indexing-module-creating-multimedia-access-oral-history; Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH), “Timecode Indexing Module (TIM) (Version 0.1.0),” computer software, 2023, https://github.com/c2dh/tim; Lars Wieneke, head of the Digital Research Infrastructure department at C2DH, was key to the development of TIM.

^30. “About Us,” TheirStory, 2023, https://theirstory.io/about-us.

^31. I describe these components in the updated documentation for the open-source version of TIM I maintain on GitHub; Douglas Lambert, “Timecode Indexing Module (TIM) (Version 0.1.1),” computer software, 2023, https://github.com/cartograforce/tim.

^32. “About Us,” TheirStory.

^33. See “The History Makers Visual Archive,” The History Makers: The Digital Repository for the Black Experience, accessed June 1, 2023, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/archivedive/; “Audio-Video Barn,” Illinois State Museum Society, 2010, accessed June 1, 2023, https://avbarn.museum.state.il.us/; The Digital Collections of the National WWII Museum, accessed June 1, 2023, https://www.ww2online.org/.

^34. This section composed and edited based on OHA 2021 Video, [00:21:00] and [00:48:00], (Joey Balfour presentations); Joey Balfour, email conversation with the author, June 28 – July 5, 2022; “The Digital Collections of the National World WWII Museum,” accessed June 1, 2023, https://ww2online.org; Lindsey Barnes and Kim Guise, “World War Words: The Creation of a World War II–Specific Vocabulary for the Oral History Collection at the National WWII Museum,” The Oral History Review 40, no. 1 (2013): 126-34, https://doi.org/10.1093/ohr/oht027.

^35. Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, classic edition (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001); Stephen E. Ambrose, D-Day, June 6, 1944 : the Climactic Battle of World War II (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994); “The Digital Collections of the National WWII Museum,” 2023, https://www.ww2online.org/.

^36. Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Leadership Grants: The National D-Day Museum, LG-24-09-0075-09, https://www.imls.gov/grants/awarded/lg-24-09-0075-09.

^37. “Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project,” 2023, https://densho.org/about-densho/; Goeff Froh (Densho Deputy Director), email communication with the author, February 3 and May 12, 2023.

^38. “A Brief Tour of the Interviews Website with Director Jenni Matz,” accessed June 1, 2023, https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/Resources; Jenni Matz (director of The Interviews project at the Television Academy Foundation), email communication with the author, February 24, 2023.

^39. Kevin Bradley, “Built on Sound Principles: Audio Management and Delivery at the National Library of Australia,” IFLA Journal 40, no. 3 (2014); Simone Lark and Terence Ingram (National Library of Australia), email communication with the author, January 31–February 8, 2018.

^40. “Lisa Jackson Interviewed by Frank Heimans in the Australian Generations Oral History Project,” National Library of Australia, 2023, https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-219901040/listen.

^41. “Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants Oral History Project,” 2023, https://www.nla.gov.au/oral-history/forgotten-australians-and-former-child-migrants-oral-history-project.

^42. In 2022, I organized a second roundtable panel focusing on innovative work by individuals and small institutions: Douglas Lambert et al., “Oral History Timecode Indexing 2022: Home-Grown Methods and Processes for Pedagogy and Production” (roundtable session, Oral History Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, October 21st, 2022).

^43. Interclipper had very good answers to these questions, and we were able to use it far beyond its expected time and purpose because it had something called Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), which allowed us to move data into other systems.

^44. Douglas Lambert, “Timecode Indexing Module.”

^45. A recent presentation and follow-up email discussion amongst members of the OHA Archives Caucus (https://oralhistory.org/oha-archives-interest-group-oha-aig/) indicated remarkably high accuracy in (English) speech recognition from a software called “Whisper,” from OpenAI (https://openai.com/research/whisper).

^46. As a case in point, I wanted to find something I remembered Doug Boyd saying about editing OHMS files in Microsoft Word during my 2021 session. I searched and found “Microsoft” at two points in the video in no time using the ASR transcript in Aviary, and quickly discerned which one I wanted; OHA 2021 Video, [1:06:15].

^47. Automatic Indexing is an approach I considered when working with scholars in the Digital Humanities at the University of Luxembourg. It is essentially a tool for indexing text, not A/V media. To the extent that oral history was, is, and will continue to be transcript based (ASR or not), Automatic Indexing can potentially provide an AI version of a set of index terms, mapped generally to the media but not precisely. It does not begin to replicate the close, timecode-specific data practitioners create in OHI based on listening to recordings. Like ASR (and OHI), this form of AI requires significant human intervention to reach its fullest potential. See “Automatic Indexing,” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_indexing.

^48. Douglas C. Lambert, “Advancing Groundwater Restoration Research with Oral History Content, Methods, and Analysis” (PhD diss., State University of New York at Buffalo, 2018), https://ubir.buffalo.edu/xmlui/handle/10477/78456.

^49. “Oral History Indexing: Supplemental Content,” to be available on https://oralhistoryreview.org/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Douglas Lambert

Douglas Lambert is an engineer who began working in the field of oral history and audio/video content management in the early 2000s when he joined the Randforce Associates—a consulting firm established by oral historian Michael Frisch—to pursue new practices in thematic, timecode-level indexing for long-form recordings. As Randforce’s Director of Technology, he led dozens of projects, helping clients develop multimedia data and online displays for better access to oral histories and other a/v content. Building on his master’s degree in environmental engineering and supported by a National Science Foundation fellowship, he earned a PhD in civil engineering using oral history interviewing and indexing methods. His dissertation analyzed the results of a multidisciplinary NSF study, where a team of researchers recorded anecdotal and experiential knowledge from technical and nontechnical professionals about Superfund-era groundwater contamination. Lambert went on to a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History at the University of Luxembourg, where he codeveloped the initial version of the Timecode Indexing Module (TIM) software tool. He is currently a research scientist and project manager in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY). He continues to apply approaches and methods from oral history indexing in multidisciplinary projects and to develop the open-source version of TIM. Email: [email protected]