Developing Open Oral Histories in Islandora

The Islandora Oral Histories Solution Packingests, transcribes, and annotates audio and video files (with all separate elements being permissible and available to other Islandora modules). It was developed to address the increasing demand to make recorded oral histories web-accessible, searchable, SEO-Friendly and more engaging. The increase in the volume of audio and video recordings being produced require appropriate stewardship to ensure long-term preservation and easy public access. Scholars and researchers also want the ability to choose different areas on those recordings to produce multi-faceted content and metadata such as annotation, transcription, publication, and to associate oral histories with other repository content including (but not limited to) documents, other media files, citations, and images. The module supports HTML5 video, including built-in closed caption/subtitles and interactive transcript/annotation display. The module reflects our research and understanding of existing tools, open standards, and best practices for audio/video annotation