Oral History is a complex information package that has not yet fully realized its potential with regard to internet access.  Content management systems still generally treat the different components of oral history as separate entities.  You can search the text or you can listen / watch the interview but the different components are rarely integrated.   The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries, in partnership with the Kentuckiana Digital Library, has designed a web interface to try to more intelligently and efficiently present oral histories online by enabling users to search at the word level and link from the text to the appropriate moment in the audio where those corresponding words occur. This capability is made possible through a process of digital preparation of the interviews audio, transcript and metadata in a web-based  application we have designed called OHMS.  Designed to mimic the workflow of a video game, OHMS has been constructed to inexpensively and efficiently encode transcripts for online delivery of the time coded transcripts and audio files.  One hour of interview can be marked up and submitted in a matter of minutes.  We launched the interface last year and have been filling it up with synchronized transcripts since.  We are currently planning to explore possibilities with applying this technology more broadly to include compatibility with other content management systems such as ContentDM (among others), and more immediately, to work with streaming video.  The front end interface can be accessed at the Kentuckiana Digital Library: here.

I want to explore this idea of more effectively staging and accessing oral history online and explore the advantages and disadvantages of our chosen method and discuss challenges we face in the process.