Is "Digital" Dead?

It occurred to me while I was working on the project "Oral History in the Digital Age", that I wonder what the inevitable post-digital age will be characterized by... I'm wondering if at some point we'll be able to stop putting the word "digital" in front of everything and just call it "the work we're doing now". This stems from a question I've had for several months now: what does "digital" really mean? Despite it's flagrant use as modifier for all sorts of things, I think it just means we use computers, which is such a given at this point in history that we hardly need to make a note of it. I'm starting to think it might be time to reign in that term, and make sure that our enthusiasm for the potential that computers bring to us (and the potential of web-based social connectivity) does not get confused with what our actual work is.

Timecode Metadata

Timecode metadata are the critical link in the between textual content and audio or video in digital environments. Different architectures for timecode deployment have evolved independently in the creation of digital oral history collections, and all help to significantly increase digital accessibility. With many models now on the table it is an appropriate time to take inventory of what approaches are available, closely evaluate the relationship between these models, understand the range or textual data they are linked to, and elucidate the current “state of the art” to find common ground for future developments. 

Timecodes are being put to use in two broad ways: 1.) as transcription timecodes, enhancing full text transcriptions with a cross-reference to time points in the source audio or video, and 2.) as audio or video file metadata enhancing a longer audio or video file, or A/V timecodes. Within A/V timecodes two basic models are emerging, one that uses timecodes pointing to a single point in time in the digital file, allowing the user to play forward from that point. (We might call these indexing point timecodes.)  In another model, (which we might call passage timecodes), timecodes are defined as inpoints and outpoints giving meaningful content within a longer digital file its own begining, middle and ending. 

The latter model of defining passage timecodes can take place in database environments where the in/out points are just references that move the listener digitally (hypertextually) to the passage of interest. In other contexts, practitioners manage oral histories by hard-editing passages permanently, thus creating segments or clips from the full length digital source file.   

All timecode deployments require choices to be made--regarding the frequency of transcription or indexing point timecodes, or the length and comprehensiveness of passages timecodes. No standards have been set as to how these choices are made and there are strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches. I hope to have the opportunity to compare notes with others using the various models, determine the trades-offs between models, establish what can and cannot be standardized, and allow digital oral history stewards to proceed with future investments in software more informed.

 

Meaning Mapping for Ballparks, not Bulls eyes

In a number of our projects, we have had difficulty training our clients and partners NOT to get too specific by trying to imagine every possible future user while creating the controlled vocabularies and multi-dimensional indexes. (When we did this on an early project we ended up with an “out-of-control” controlled vocabulary.) The but the indexing process is not about naming things, rather sorting them into a collection of baskets of meaning we create. The structure of baskets can grow, change, expand or contract over time (an "iterative" process) and provide a lot of retrieval power and more than ample browsing power.

A misleading concept that Google reinforces in the digital age is the idea that accessing multi-media is about hitting bulls eyes or getting home runs. But one of the most underrated features of Google is not its powerful secret engine for retrieval that we will never understand, but the way it now leverages 10+ years of our “near misses”.  Google’s correlative database gives us a quick list of potential things we meant, but, like many others users, have misspelled or mis-Googled and eventually found. Even Google knows that searches are actually less about searching, and more about matching meaning to users’ desires. "Browsing" is still a mode of operating on the web and "Googling" is something different--more specific. We remember and embrace the promise of the web as a place to explore and browse...

Michael Frisch and "A Shared Authority"

Michael Frisch does not yet have a Wikipedia entry to himself, unlike Don Ritchie and Alessandro Portelli, our other favorite oral history rock stars. We really have to get on that one of these days....

Thanks to a recently published book, however, Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World, there is a new Wikipedia entry that expounds on the concept clarifies what is meant by the iconic title of Mike's seminal book, A Shared Authority. Mike is quoted under the "Criticisms" section of the Wikipedia page "Shared Historical Authority".

Representation of recordings through Annotation

Our practice of Oral History content management, which we often refer to as digital indexing, began by questioning the assumption that recordings must be transcribed word for word before they can be used.  In the database-driven environments we work in, summary annotations are much preferred to full transcription. The work of the annotator is at the heart of digital indexing and we continue to reiterate that full transcription is always an option if the need is there and time and resources allow. Here are some random musings about annotation...

• Annotation is about representing what is on a recording in a text format.  In this sense, it is no different than a transcription.
• An annotation needs to describe passages of audio adequately enough to lead a user to that passage. Defining the users well may be as important or more important than the specificity with which the annotation represents the passage.
• An annotation can be enhanced by using strategic vocabulary words within the prose of the annotation. Thus full text searches will get hits on that digital object (passage of audio or video). 
• All annotations are subjective, and that is totally okay. It is all part of recognizing, defining, and composing toward an audience of users. Our subjectivity saves them time.

Producer/Publisher

A producer may be involved at any stage of an oral historydigital indexing project, and can focus on concise published content that features parts of a collection even as comprehensive annotation and indexing proceeds. Production can begin immediately after an interview is recorded or long after an interview was performed. Naturally, finding the best segments to produce from older footage is more convenient when the content is annotated and/or indexed.

Producers work in a variety of different ways, but fundamentally their role is to identify content they wish to work with, redact that content as part of an editorial process, and reproduce the material in edited videos, podcasts, segments for radio, etc.  The producer uses the content of the audio/video resource, brings additional research and vision, and adds other historical recordings, music, images and other documents to create palatable products to audiences.  Annotation and indexing is crucial for creating access to oral history audio and video, but production and publication is important for spreading awareness of and exposure to the collection. Even as we attempt to preserve and create better access to oral history collections, ultimately we want to see them be used for the education and enjoyment of others, and producers are crucial players in that effort. 

Return to Oral History Digital Indexing Roles.

Interviewer

Digital Indexing of oral histories begins with the work of interviewer.  In an ideal digital indexing project, the role of the interviewer may continue throughout the process of indexing, and in some cases right through to editing and production. In other cases, the interviewer cannot be involved, for example in older, archival collections. In any oral history, a key responsibility of the interviewer is to know their subject and have conducted thorough background and contextual research.  An interviewer is by default a steward of the recordings, and is thus on some level responsible for seeing through certain follow up steps after the recording is made.  In a project that includes indexing, an interviewer is well positioned—because of their familiarity with the content—to be an annotator and indexer of the material they recorded. This is not imperative, and sometimes has the downside that they are not as objective as a less familiar annotator might be. However, the original interviewer—especially at a time shortly after the interview was conducted—has the potential to most efficiently annotate material, taking advantage of their own memory of the recorded event. When someone besides the interviewer does the annotation, they have the disadvantage of being unfamiliar with the content. 

Return to Oral History Digital Indexing Roles

Oral History Digital Indexing Roles

Digital Indexing work is more akin to art than science. Accordingly, breaking down the process to a series of universally applicable steps or elements is challenging.  This is both because of the nature of the work but also due to the fact that every project we work on is different. Our clients’ placement on the digital spectrum varies--ranging from brand new oral history projects where not a single recording has yet been made to well-developed projects with large amounts of digital material that need to be multi-dimensionally indexed.  Breaking projects into phases, tasks, or other elemental organizational schemes can be done, but is not necessarily the most useful organizational indexing schema for this type of content (if you know what I mean).

The indexing process can be described by the roles of the people involved. These roles described are not mutually exclusive, but they do comprehensively cover the phases of work necessary to get a project from beginning to end. The following titles for the various “roles” are conceptual only.  In some smaller projects, one or two people are taking on all of the roles. In other projects, several people may take on a single role (for example, where volunteers are organized to create annotations). These roles can be filled by people within or outside of an organization, be paid or volunteer positions, and engage highly skilled and knowledgeable people, or not.  They are presented here as a basic guideline of “who and what” is needed within an annotation/indexing project, and each role will be described in more detail in their own post.

• Interviewer
• Annotator
• Indexer/Coder
• Editor
• Producer/Publisher

Anecdata: Oral History Methods in the Sciences

[The following is the abstract I just submitted for the Oral History Association conference in Cleveland in October. If you haven't gotten your abstract in, today is the last day...]

Anecdata: Oral History Methods in the Sciences

Although oral history is increasingly accepted as valid form of evidence, it is still a foreign concept in the the sciences. Yet all the arguments Portelli makes for "what makes oral history different" must not apply only to the humanities. This is especially true now, as digital tools allow for more direct and robust indexing of recordings. In the study of Ecological Restoration (ER), researchers are trying to understand complex problems with limited data. Even where advanced theory and modeling has been established, there are gaps in knowledge and a lack of input amongst all relevant stakeholders. Through a partnership with members of the Ecosystem Restoration through Interdisciplinary Exchange (ERIE) Program at the University at Buffalo, we are exploring the use oral histories to evaluate ER projects in terms of the human values driving them. We are applying methods of annotation and theme mapping used in our oral history practice to the open-ended recorded interviews of ER practitioners. In this paper, we will discuss how use of a database approach to content management not only serves as a means of efficient access to oral history collections, but also turn anecdotes literally into data.

Examining Assumptions about OHA Meetings

The deadline for submissions for the Oral History Association Annual Meeting is rapidly approaching (Jan 20). If you’re not in OHA already, consider joining and/or coming to the meeting in Cleveland in 2012. OHA is a great group of people from all sorts of backgrounds, and we always look forward to these meetings, where we meet new folks and reunite with our oral history friends.

http://www.oralhistory.org/

I plan to present a paper again and to support Melanie as she carries forward the torch of “So, What Do You Do?” (SWDYD). We introduced SWDYD at the OHA meeting in Louisville in 2010, as an alternative to the 90 minute sessions with 3-4 paper presentations followed by Q&A. SWDYD is focused on getting an overview of several people’s projects at once in a more casual setting, as opposed to “giving papers” (or reading them word for word!). Inspired by concepts like “Speed Dating”, “Pecha Kucha Nights”, and THATcamp’s “Dork Shorts”, we wanted to create something for OHA that would introduce a short-form, yet structured event that emphasizes getting participants into meaningful dialogue. The past two years we had a diverse group of presenters giving their 6-minute talks about what they do in oral history in the first session, followed by a set of round-table discussions in the second session. We are currently working on tweaks and upgrades for SWDYD for Cleveland 2012! Stay tuned for that…

The Unexamined Assumption

"In order to be able to access oral histories, transcription is a prerequisite."