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Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History

 

OHMS

The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University of Kentucky’s Libraries Digital Services have created a web-based, system called OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer) to inexpensively and efficiently enhance access to and discovery of oral history online. The OHMS system provides users word-level search capability and a time-correlated transcript or index connecting the textual search term to the corresponding moment in the recorded interview online.  To learn more about OHMS:
 

UK Libraries and Nunn Center Receive Grant for Web Search Technology

Kentucky Digital Library: View OHMS in action

Article in The Chronicle of Higher Education on OHMS, July 7 2011.

 

 

Beginning in 2012, the OHMS system will integrate a “subject-tagging” feature which will work similarly by connecting the user from text to audio, however, it will contain indexed information (description, keywords, links etc.) that correlate to the time-code which will help the user get an overview of the interview and connect to major subject transitions.  This will be a much less expensive alternative to transcription and has certain advantages over transcription.  First, indexing enable the effective description of concepts being described in the interview.  For example, someone could speak for hours about living under segregation without actually saying the word “segregation.”  A keyword search would prove difficult of a transcript, however,  a professionally generated index would link the user from the description of the concept in the index to the moment in the audio where that concept is described.  Searchable fields that will be available in the index will include segment titles, descriptions, keywords, controlled vocabulary, linkable GIS data as will external web links.  Ideally, the future user can toggle between both the online index and the transcript to maximize navigation of the content.