An Interactive Flash Website for Oral Histories

摘要

Automatic speech alignment and natural language processing technologies provide full content search and retrieval access into oral history collections. These tools have been field-tested with The HistoryMakers and Harrisburg Living Legacy oral history archives, showing the value of an Adobe Flash front-end interface. Built with Adobe Flex 3, the interface works across browsers and operating systems, supports deep linking and browser-based navigation, provides synchronized transcripts that can be fully searched and tracked while watching the interviews, and incorporates filtering by facets, a menu bar breadcrumb interface, and a user play list to collect stories of interest. Refinements to the interface are discussed following the first six months of web deployment, with suggestions offered for other digital video libraries, particularly oral histories.