OHMS: Enhancing Access and Discovery of Oral History Online

The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries and the Kentuckiana Digital Library have created a web-based, system called OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchonizer)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. University of Kentucky Libraries has integrated the OHMS system into Blacklight, an open source content management system that has been customized specifically for delivering oral history. The Nunn Center has used this system to upload over 500 interviews in the past two years. This project is designed to create compatibility between OHMS and other popular content management systems empowering institutions, both large and small, to provide an effective, user-centered discovery interface for oral history on a large scale. In addition to developing OHMS compatibility with open source content management systems such as OMEKA and KORA, and larger scale commercial systems such as CONTENTdm, this project will develop multimedia tutorials instructing users on the use, installation and deployment of OHMS within particular content management systems. The project will be conducted between October 1, 2011 and June 30, 2013 and will work directly with multiple institutions that employ different content management systems in order to test the different layers of compatibility with OHMS. These institutions initially include Baylor University’s Institute for Oral History (CONTENTdm), Oklahoma State University’s Oklahoma Oral History Research Program (CONTENTdm), MATRIX at Michigan State University (KORA), and Cleveland State University’s Center for Public History and Digital Humanities (OMEKA, CONTENTdm). Over the course of the project we will work directly with smaller institutions as well (including archives, libraries and museums) who seek to enhance their online presentation of oral history.