Implementing OHMS: Multi-Institutional Perspectives

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries has created an open-source, web-based, system called OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer) to inexpensively and efficiently enhance access to oral history online. OHMS 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.  The OHMS Indexing Module provides effective access to oral history online for a fraction of the price of transcription as well as connecting users from a moment in an oral history interview to a photograph or online map.

The Nunn Center has been developing and utilizing OHMS since 2008.  In 2011, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) awarded the Nunn Center a National Leadership Grant to prepare OHMS for open source distribution, and create compatibility between OHMS and other popular content management systems.  Now that the grant period has come to successful conclusion, OHMS has been adopted by a variety of institutions.  This panel will be the first opportunity to reflect on the implementation of OHMS by outside institutions including Baylor University Institute of Oral History, the University of Georgia Special Collections, the Kentucky Oral History Commission, as well as to present an update on workflow and recent improvements to OHMS by the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries. Specific issues that will be discussed will include reflections on the installation of OHMS, transcription and indexing workflows, connecting OHMS to web-based content and collection management systems such as ContentDM, the use of OHMS in the context of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) as well as the addition and implementation of the Kentucky Oral History Commission’s OHMS Indexing Grant program.

Sub Unit

• Oral History Association Annual Meeting

Individual Presentations

• Everybody Must Get OHMS-ed: Re-Tooling and Re-purposing at the University of Georgia Special Collections Libraries - Christian Lopez, University of Georgia Libraries

• Implementing OHMS at Baylor University Institute for Oral History - Steven Kent Sielaff, Baylor University Institute for Oral History

• Carrot on a Stick: Incentivizing OHMS to Kentucky Archives - Sarah Milligan, Kentucky Oral History Commission/Kentucky Historical Society

• OHMS Changes Everything: The Impact of OHMS on the Nunn Center - Kopana Terry, University of Kentucky Libraries

Chair

• Douglas A Boyd, University of Kentucky

Commentator

• Douglas A Boyd, University of Kentucky