Let me tell you a story... - Use and reuse of oral history_Marloes Kueter (2012)

Let me tell you a story…

Use and reuse of oral history

Marloes Charlotte Kueter

Falckstraat 6B, 1017 VW Amsterdam

06-14573182

[email protected]

0238422

08-08-2012

Supervisor: Prof.dr. T.H.P.M. (Theo) Thomassen

Second reader: T. (Trilce) Navarrete Hernandez MA

Master in Information Science

University of Amsterdam

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract 3

Keywords 3

Introduction 4

1 An introduction to oral history 5

1.1 Shifts in oral history 5

1.2 Forms of oral history 7

1.2.1 Interview 8

1.2.2 Interpretation 9

1.3 Preservation and presentation 10

1.4 Peculiar elements of oral history 10

2 Theories on information science 13

2.1 Context 14

2.2 Semantic Web 14

2.3 Universality 15

2.4 Actor-network theory 16

2.5 Primary and secondary sources 17

2.6 Users 17

2.7 Digitisation 18

3 Case studies 20

3.1 Verteld Verleden 20

3.2 Aletta 24

3.3 Definitions of oral history 25

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4 Projects analysis 28

4.1 Use of oral history 28

4.2 Reuse of oral history 29

4.3 Technology aspects 33

4.3.1 Distribution 33

4.3.2 Embedding 33

4.3.3 Collection 34

4.3.4 Technology 34

4.3.5 Findability and access 34

4.4 Privacy and copyrights 40

4.5 Summary 40

5 Video content on YouTube 42

6 Conclusion 44

Bibliography 46

Appendix I 48

Appendix II 51

Appendix III 54

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ABSTRACT

The way we remember history is marked by the sources that are used. Which sources are

accepted and reliable? Written sources are marked as reliable, while oral history is struggling to

be accepted and to be used. Over the years historians have accepted more or less the use of oral

history, but what is the practice of using oral history? This research is guided by the paramount

question: how is oral history made accessible for reuse? The sub-questions are: what is oral

history? What do oral history theories and information science theories have in common? How

should oral history be used? And: what is the practice of use and reuse of oral history?

KEYWORDS

Information science, oral history, online presentation, use, reuse.

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INTRODUCTION

How do we remember (our) history? What form do we choose to remember the past and whose

history perspective is it we remember? History is everywhere and is conveyed to us in the

written form. We even speak of ‘the man who writes history’ when the first British cyclist

Bradley Wiggins wins Le tour de France. Why? What about oral history? Is passing on history

through told stories not equally historically important to remember as the written ones? And, do

we use those told stories if they can be defined as oral history?

The way we remember history is marked by the sources that are used. Which sources are

accepted and reliable? Written sources are marked as reliable, while oral history is struggling to

be accepted and to be used. Over the years historians have accepted more or less the use of oral

history, but what is the practice of using oral history? In this thesis the main objective is to

investigate the use and reuse of oral history.

This raises another question: what is oral history? Oral history is not just a number of interviews

focused on a particular event in time, but it relies on the memory of the narrator and is strongly

influenced by the relationship between interviewer and interviewee. The subjectivity of the

source is an often heard criticism on oral history. However, it is an important element of this

oral history, because it gives a voice to minorities based on the experiences of witnesses. The

first chapter gives an overview of the development of oral history as a theory as well as a

method and the reactions of oral historians on the criticism.

Oral history is a very particular source of information. In order to understand oral history,

information science theories provide a basis for understanding oral history. For the

interpretation of information context is necessary, especially when a source is considered

subjective. The second chapter links oral history with information science theories and gives a

framework for the main research question in this thesis: how is oral history used?

In the third chapter oral history projects conducted in the Netherlands will be introduced and

especially one project will be highlighted: Verteld Verleden. This project consisted of

collaboration between several partners, but one of these partners will be outlined: Aletta E-

Quality Institute for Gender equality and Women’s History (Aletta). The focus of Verteld

Verleden are the issues of online presentation of oral history. The project rounded up this year

and the conclusions are a starting point for further research on online use and reuse of oral

history.

This descriptive research contains a literature study and an analysis of selected oral history

projects (chapter four) where the issues raised during project are outlined. The project

experience is then compared with information from within the field.

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1 AN INTRODUCTION TO ORAL HISTORY

Oral history refers to the process of collecting (primary source) material in an interview setting

with a witness to or participant in an event or a way of life. This interview is grounded in

context of time and place to give the story meaning and it is recorded for the purpose of

preserving the information and making it available to others. Therefore, oral history refers to

both the process and the final product of this process. (Mackay “Glossary – 2012”)

The assumption that Lynn Abrams makes, is that in oral history research, practice and theory

are entwined. It is necessary to comprehend what is said, how it is said, why it is said and what it

means. (Abrams, p 1) In other words, the term oral history refers to the process of conducting

and recording interviews as well as the product of this process. (Abrams 2)

1.1 Shifts in oral history

Historians use oral history as a method of research. However, this method is not without

controversy and in order to give the practice of oral history more credit within the field, it has

changed over the years. This thesis focuses on the online presentation of oral history and

therefore only the recorded oral history has been taken into account. The development of oral

history is illustrated by four paradigm shifts:

1. the post-war renaissance of memory as a source for ‘people’s history’;

2. the development of ‘post-positivist’ approaches to memory and subjectivity during the

late 1970s;

3. the transformation in perceptions about the role of the oral historian as interviewer and

analyst from the late 1980s;

4. the digital revolution of the late 1990s and early 2000s. (Perks and Thomson 1)

The starting point of oral history, as we understand it nowadays, is the use of memory as a

source for historical research. The transformation from story to research method started after the

Second World War with the increasing availability of portable tape recorders. Oral history

began with a revival especially in the United States and Britain during the 1950s and 1960s. The

British historians who used this method of recording stories were merely interested in the

experiences of the so-called ‘ordinary’ working people. Their colleagues in the US, on the other

hand, recorded white male elites. (Perks and Thomson 2) This is not a rigid divide, but it shows

how stories from different perspectives colour our perception of history.

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These different perceptions also show the controversy of the use of oral history. Memories are

coloured and very personal experiences. The stories of ‘ordinary’ people have become a central

focus through the years. History was, in the view of many oral historians, a white male story.

Other voices should be heard as well. In the 1960s and early 1970s oral history gave a voice to

minorities such as the working classes, women and black people. (Perks and Thomson 2)

The second paradigm shift was a response to positivist critics. The core of their criticism of oral

history was the lack of reliability, because the memory of elderly people would be distorted by

physical deterioration and nostalgia and the personal bias of both interviewer and interviewee.

Collective and retrospective versions of history are also of influence of remembering the past.

Oral historians collected methods from social psychology, anthropology and sociology to create

guidelines that would provide useful signposts for reading memories and combining those with

other historical sources. (Perks and Thomson 3)

The critique on oral history was turned around in the late 1970s by the argument that so-called

unreliability and subjectivity of memory was rather its strength and provided clues about the

experience of events. However, objectivity remained disputed and during the 1980s it caused a

third paradigm shift in oral history. Oral historians were aware of being subjective and how this

affected their work. They pointed out that subjectivity could be turned into an objective

approach as long as the historian was explicit about his subjectivity, so that it can actually add

another layer on oral history. (Perks and Thomson 5)

In the 1970s and 1980s another trend influenced the idea of oral history. During this period oral

history was mostly used as a method to recover history to provide evidence about past events

which could not be retrieved from conventional historical sources. This concept of oral history

as ‘recovery history’ is nowadays regarded as limiting and in addition to justify recovering

history using stories, verification of evidence became important. This verification consisted of

cross-checking with written documents as well as setting stories in wider context and checking

consistency of the stories. (Abrams 5)

The justification of the use of oral history led to a redefinition of oral history, in which

subjectivity has a central role. Oral historians should not ignore subjective experiences and

views of a past event, but should outline and underline this subjectivity. Personal experiences

tell us something about today’s views on past events and perhaps how (ordinary) people

experienced past events. This is, in fact, the strength of oral history. (Abrams 7)

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The process of collecting information, the interpretation and the final product involve different

research and academic disciplines and mark the development of oral history methods. There is

an exchange of ideas and methods between the disciplines, nationally and internationally. This

exchange has led oral history to the next shift: digitisation of oral history. It is not only the

recorded voice as well as the context provided by historians and researchers that is presented

digitally. The general thought is that the use of digital devices and technologies will affect oral

history and the role of the oral historian in the future. (Perks and Thomson 6-8)

1.2 Forms of oral history

The development of oral history as fully recognised research method is linked to the material

that has to be interpreted. Lynn Abrams makes a distinction of four forms of oral history:

1. the original interview;

2. the recorded version of the interview;

3. the written transcript;

4. interpretation of the interview material.

(Abrams 9)

It is essential that interviewer and interviewee have a good relationship. When a comfortable

relationship is established, it is more likely the interview will be ‘successful’. This means that

the interview produces a coherent and fluent story. On the other hand, an ‘unsuccessful’

interview produces an incoherent narrative without reflections and elaboration. However, these

assumptions of ‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’ are arbitrary. Every interview gains information

for analysis, but in general it is accepted that a fluent and coherent interview is more helpful to

analysis and interpretation. It depends on the goals of the interview a historian has in mind; in

some cases an incoherent story can tell you more than a coherent one. (Abrams 10-11)

When conducting an interview it is also important to produce a good recording: the sound is

clearly reproduced and without background noise. This facilitates an easy transcription of the

interview. The transcription can be produced in various ways. Writing a clear text in standard

language is easy to read for users, however, the sound and rhythm of speech cannot be captured

in standard language. The reproduction of an interview in phonetic writing captures the sound

and rhythm of the interviewee. This is especially important when the interviewee speaks dialect.

Both transcriptions are needed, because the interview has to be comprehensible to a non dialect

speaker and it has to reproduce the dialect. Oral historians differ on which exact form of

transcription should be used to reproduce interviews, but in all cases they have to be true to

interviewee and the aim of the interview. (Abrams 11-14)

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The final stage is interpretation of oral history. Abrams identifies three models of interpretation.

The first model she terms ‘reminiscence and community’. The sole purpose of this model is to

recover voices and place them on the historical record. The evidential model is the second

model which encompasses oral history for gathering evidence, the use of oral testimony as data

and for providing information to support or illustrate arguments or articles. This type of oral

history is mostly dismembered from its context. The third model is the theoretical model. It can

be a purely theoretical approach where oral history material is used as a source on which to

apply an analytic model: the narrative is analysed for certain conventions. A more widespread

approach is the combination of theoretical framework and the evidential model, using oral

history to analyse as well as to illustrate a particular argument. (Abrams 15)

1.2.1 Interview

The basic element of oral history is the interview. An interviewer needs certain skills for a

‘successful’ interview. Studs Terkel points out that listening is important and an interviewer has

to remember that people are not boring. (qtd. in Perks and Thomson 116) Furthermore, there has

to be some interaction between interviewee and interviewer. (Kathryn Anderson and Dana Jack

in Perks and Thomson 116)

This interaction contains listening to what is not said explicitly or when the interviewee silences

during the story. Interaction is also essential when the interviewee is someone from another

culture. Sometimes there is a cultural divide in the way people tell stories than techniques

applied in western countries are not sufficient. The interviewer needs alternatives and visual

objects to get the interviewee started. (Hugo Slim and Paul Thompson in Perks and Thomson

116)

When an interviewer is someone from inside a group, then the relation between interviewer and

interviewee can be smoothened. This is of use, for example, when the interviewee speaks a

certain dialect. If the interviewer was an outsider he could have experienced some difficulties to

understand the interviewee. (Belinda Bozzoli in Perks and Thomson 117) However, the

interviewer as outsider can be of use in cross-cultural interviewing when the researcher wants to

explore differences between cultures or needs an objective view on a family affair.

(Respectively Susan Burton and Ruth Finnegar in Perks and Thomson 117) Other techniques

are more therapeutic and give more context on a subject. (Perks and Thomson 117)

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Traumatic remembering as experienced by Holocaust survivors is a novice for oral historians

and needs special attention. The traumatised interviewees experience the interviews not as a

closure. These interviews exist of several layers, because stories could be coloured and shaped

over time. The interviewer should take into account that some memories are removed from

normal human life and cannot be spoken about directly or even aloud. Then the interviewer has

to settle with a silence interviewee. (Perks and Thomson 117)

1.2.2 Interpretation

The sources of oral history are memories of the interviewees, but these memories are also the

subject of oral history. Oral historians use various approaches to interpret and analyse memory.

When a witness of an event is interviewed about this particular event, the memory could have

been altered. Important here is when a witness is interviewed: a couple of days or decades after

the event. It could be that the witness altered his memory through the years in order to make

sense to the facts of the witnessed event. For this reason, it can be interesting to interview

witnesses twice: short after an event, when the memory is fresh, and some years after the event.

(Perks and Thomson 212)

The altered memory is not necessarily problematic, because it could help to illuminate the

process of understanding memory in general. An overview of the different actors who influence

the memory is needed to understand the (altered) memory. The interviewer (insider or outsider),

for instance, is an actor who influences the story. Sometimes people reconstruct their stories in

order to please the interviewer or to defend themselves, and their fellow witnesses, why they did

or did not do certain things. The memory is under control, because it causes pain to remember

(traumatic events) or witnesses compose popular memory to understand complex events as well

as to feed patriotic feelings. (Perks and Thomson 212-213)

The use of personal memories for the construction of collective memory influences the

recordings of oral history. The interviewee can use a certain structure or style for telling stories

to express and construct his identity. Eventually, the narrator decides which part of the memory

is to be concealed and how it is presented to the interviewer. Both ‘rich’ and ‘flat’ stories can be

produced; the first sort of stories contains much detail, opinion and facts (i.e. memory of

narrator), the latter ones mostly consist of actual facts as known by the general public and

without personal details. In addition, the interviewer interprets the interview and this

interpretation can differ from the interpretation an interviewee has on the matter. However,

conflicting interpretations are not always explicitly told or shown in an interview. (Perks and

Thomson 214-215)

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The interpretation of the interviewer is mostly more important than the one of the interviewee,

not because the interviewer is more objective, but sometimes the view on events of the

interviewee conflicts with the public opinion. When the interviewer has a more positive

interpretation on events it can have also a positive effect on the narrator whether he agrees with

the interpretation or not. The goal of the interviewee can be making sense of actions rejected by

the public. (Perks and Thomson 214-215)

1.3 Preservation and presentation

The process of collecting oral history involves also questions about how to preserve and present

oral history. Oral historians have to consider the impact of selection, editing, documentation,

representation and migration (e.g. digitisation) on the interviews. If the goal is a long-term

preservation than the collaboration between archivist, librarian and oral historian is necessary.

The relationship between these three professions (curators) is not always as smooth as it should

be, because they do not always agree about the value of oral history collection as part of the

whole collection of the institution (e.g. archive, library, and museum). However, the challenge

of the access of oral history is something all curators agree on. (Perks and Thomson 334)

Providing access to collection is a challenge for all digitised collections, whether oral history or

paintings, it seem to be difficult to make them accessible. Curators need to consider how to

promote and present the collections and who the (potential) users are (professional and non-

professionals) and how users can (or might) use the collection. For oral historians it is important

that the interviews and testimonies have context, because oral history content cannot be

understood as objective facts. This means that users have to be guided in the use of oral history.

A best practice is to let them sign an agreement before accessing original oral history data

(University of Alaska Fairbanks, Karen Brewster). (Perks and Thomson 334-336)

1.4 Peculiar elements of oral history

The sources for oral history are living people and for this reason oral history is very distinctive

from other forms of history methodology. Alessandro Portelli introduced this insight in an

influential article in 1979. Furthermore, he identified six elements that distinguish oral history

sources from other sources: orality, narrative, subjectivity, credibility, objectivity and

authorship. (Abrams 18-19) Abrams uses different terms for some of these elements in her

book, but the meaning of the terms remains largely the same.

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First, Abrams discusses the term orality which deals with the spoken word. It comprises the

rhythms and cadences, repetitions and intonations, the use of particular speech form (e.g.

anecdote, reported speech), the use of dialect as well as the volume, tone and speed. (Abrams

19-20) Secondly, she explains the meaning of the narrative. This is a form that transforms

knowledge about a particular event to a story (narrative). The interviewee composes and

constructs a narrative in such a form that all of his knowledge is part of the story. Interviewers

should bear in mind that there could be several cultural differences on how narratives are

constructed. (Abrams 21)

The third element is performance which is linked to orality and narrative. The main questions

with performance are: what form of speech does the interviewee use? And: how does the

interviewee behave during the narrative? (Abrams 22) Narrators should be encouraged to tell

about the past from their point of view in that time and how they think about it now. This is

called subjectivity, the fourth element. Oral history in this form is about what people wanted to

do, what they believed they were doing and what they now think they did. The process of self-

reflection is very distinctive from other forms of history sources. (Abrams 22)

In this context, memory (the fifth element) is also an important factor. The memory is more

decisive for oral compared to other sources. Oral historians are always aware of the fact that the

interviewee constructs memory from information and stories from their families, communities,

neighbourhood(s) and nation. Furthermore, the memory is an active process, because it is

continuously influenced by different actors and events. (Abrams 23)

The sixth peculiarity is that oral history cannot be pinned down, because every interview is

different, even interviews with the same person about the same event. This mutability is caused

by the process of intersubjectivity. The impact of the age and sex of an interviewer on an

interviewee changes the structure of a narrative, even when it is the same person interviewed by

different persons. In other words, oral history is a work in progress. (Abrams 24)

Collaboration is the seventh element. Abrams finds oral history a joint enterprise, in other

words there is collaboration necessary between interviewee and researcher. The oral historian

has an active role and his presence cannot be forgotten in order to understand the interview.

Abrams quotes Portelli’s work here. He sees this process as a multi-vocal source, because the

original source, the narrator, tells his story and this story goes through several transformations

before it becomes public. When oral history becomes public it continues to alter and different

versions of the narrative coexist in which different elements are highlighted. (Abrams 24-25)

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Oral history is not contemporary, it is part of an oral tradition that forms a chain of

transmissions and does not exclusively exist as the memory of the narrator. However, the

timescale is always based on the personal experience of the narrator. The cultural ways of

transmission of knowledge, meaning and experience unites oral history and the oral tradition.

(Abrams 25-26)

Oral history is the voice of the voiceless and this is in contrast with the biography as historical

source. Biographies are mostly voices of ‘the rich and famous’. (Abrams 26-27) Furthermore,

various conventions exist in oral history. For example, the narrative structure that depends on

the gender of the interviewee, the used themes for stories as well as motifs for telling stories.

(Abrams 27-28)

An oral historian has to retain himself sometimes to be a historian when necessary to let the

interviewee tell his story as smooth as possible. This means that a researcher sometimes has to

stretch up the boundaries of the historical discipline, because it is important not to lose oral

sources. The preservation and publication of oral history are other aspects that should be taken

into account when not losing the orality of the source. Oral historians have to consider how they

reproduce the interview they conducted and it means that they have to test the limits of the

conventions of historical research. (Abrams 29-31)

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2 THEORIES ON INFORMATION SCIENCE

How are oral history and information science linked to each other? In this chapter ‘information’

will be explored through several theories in order to link information science to oral history.

First question is: how to understand information? Michael Buckland gave an overview of

different meanings of information:

1. Information-as-process: “the act of informing” or the communication of knowledge of

some fact. It can also be the act of telling or fact of being told of something.

2. Information-as-knowledge: information that reduces or sometimes increases

uncertainty. In both ways it adds something to information or facts. A key characteristic

is that information-as-knowledge is intangible. It is personal, subjective and conceptual

and when communicating knowledge it has to be expressed in a physical way.

3. Information-as-thing: information can be data or a document and is considered as an

expression of information. The difference with information-as-knowledge is that it is

tangible. Things can be touched and/or measured. Knowledge can be represented, but

the tangible representation cannot be understood as knowledge, but as information-as-

thing.

(Buckland 351)

INTANGIBLE TANGIBLE

ENTITY 2. Information-as-knowledge Knowledge

3. Information-as-thing Data, document

PROCESS 1. Information-as-process Becoming informed

4. Information processing Data processing

Table 2.1 Four aspects of information (Buckland 352)

Buckland understands information as tangible and intangible entities and processes. Another

interpretation of information is to understand information as ‘senses’. Tefko Saracevic describes

these ‘senses’ by explaining information as a basic phenomenon. This means that we do not

understand what information is, but the research on the phenomenon is proceeding.

Manifestations, behaviour and effects are investigated and this continuous learning shows a

variety of connotations and interpretations. Saracevic distinguishes three ‘senses’:

1. Narrow sense: information as signals or messages for decision making (comparable

with the information-as-thing and information-as-process)

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2. Broader sense: information that directly involves cognitive processing and

understanding1 (comparable with information-as-process and information-as-

knowledge)

3. Broadest sense: using information in context. When information in the narrow sense is

a message that in the broader sense is cognitively processed, it can be used for a given

task. In other words, it can be used in context. Information is used by certain

motivations and in relation with other information. (Saracevic, 1054-1055)

2.1 Context

Saracevic points out that context is an important element in information science and it is

implicit in the social role of information science. This social role or social context for

information means that information plays an important role in everyday life and it becomes

more important when information can be accessed at all times. How to keep order in an

overwhelming amount of information? Vannevar Bush had as answer the Memex: “[...] a device

in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is

mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged

supplement to his memory.” (Bush)

Bush is considered as a visionary, but the Memex was never built. However, the concept of

memory supplements and storage space using technologies is still based on his Memex idea.

The need to control information continues to be an unresolved problem. Especially, when

considering ‘context’ and ‘meaning’ of information. Context is added by humans and meaning

can be understood as technological layer in order to allow computers to read content and to

interpret the information. Tim Berners-Lee believes that the Semantic Web, as supplement of

the existing web, is the solution to structure ‘meaningful content’. (Berners-Lee et al. 36)

2.2 Semantic web

Berners-Lee understands ‘meaningful content’ as content on the web with added layers by users

for computers. These layers enable computers to understand and to interpret web content and

transform computers into agents on the web which can search page by page to fulfil tasks for

users. Another thing is that the organisation of web content is decentralised (Berners-Lee et al.

1 Saracevic refers to Tague-Sutcliff’s interpretation of information: “Information is an intangible that depends on the

conceptualization and the understanding of a human being. Records contain words or pictures (tangibles) absolutely,

but they contain information relative to a user... . Information is associated with a transaction between text and reader,

between a record and a user.” (Tague-Sutcliff, 1995, p: 11-12)

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37). This decentralisation of data means that total consistency is an ideal that cannot be realised,

users should put content on the web without the approval of a central authority. (Berners-Lee

82)

Berners-Lee believes that structures on the web are social and that this social web is scale-free.

Paths on the web from node (website) to node can exist even when nodes later on will be

removed. The distribution between the nodes exists of a few nodes that can have many links

and many nodes with a few links coming in. (Shadbolt and Berners-Lee 77-78) Furthermore,

universality is the key principle of the web and allows the web to function on any platform no

matter what hardware, software, network connection or language you are using. (Berners-Lee

82)

2.3 Universality

Universality can only be realised when using open (and free!) standards. Berners-Lee and his

Web Consortium are developing this kind of standards, because they do not believe in closed

web parts (e.g. Apple’s iTunes). When creating a closed web the user is unable to share content

outside the walled off place and this is in contrast with the original idea of web space. Note here

that Berners-Lee makes a clear distinction between web and internet. Internet is an electronic

network on which the web runs; the web is an application of internet. (Berners-Lee 83)

The next step to universality is, according to Berners-Lee, linked data. (Berners-Lee 85) In

order to link data, Berners-Lee uses four rules:

1. Use Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) as names for things (universal URIs are

semantic web Uniform Resource Locators (URLs))

2. Use HTML URIs so people can find those names (internet protocol in order to find a

URI)

3. Use standards (Resource Description Framework (RDF), RDF Query Language

(SPARQL)) to provide useful information when people look up a URI (RDF is a triple

layer to create meaning for computers, in other words to create semantics in order to let

computers act like agents)

4. Include links to other URIs, so people can discover more relevant information (add

metadata)

(Berners-Lee “Linked Data”)

The implementation of these rules can be measured with a ‘star rating system’ (Ibid.):

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Available on the web (whatever format) but with an open licence, to be Open Data

Available as machine-readable structured data (e.g. excel instead of image scan of a

table)

As (2) plus non-proprietary format (e.g. CSV instead of excel)

All the above plus, Use open standards from W3C (RDF and SPARQL) to identify

things, so that people can point at your stuff

All the above, plus: Link your data to other people’s data to provide context

This scheme refers mostly to open data; however, Berners-Lee notes that it is possible to have

five starred Linked Data without being open data. Johan Oomen, Lotte Belice Baltussen and

Marieke van Erp give examples of linked data systems (Oomen, Belice Baltussen and Van

“Sharing cultural heritage the linked open data way: why you should sign up”). They find

Linked Data (http://linkeddata.org) the most important and well-known initiative, because it is a

platform for resources from the linked data community.2 The goal of using linked data is to

create a web environment in which third parties can easily access and reuse data. Therefore, an

architecture based on semantic web principles is helpful and for now probably the only way to

create linked data. In this perspective, linked data can be considered as actors as well as

networks.

2.4 Actor-network theory

The theory of the actor-network (ANT) describes the whole of agents, texts, data, devices,

architectures as well as human input that creates networks. It is a theoretical framework and it is

not directly applied in this thesis, but the idea of ANT is similar to the linked data principle. In a

very simplistic view, ANT tells us that actors (human and non-human) are equally necessary to

create networks. Furthermore, each actor is a network. The point here is that in order to

understand knowledge creation, reuse, sharing and retrieval it is important to consider that all

actors which are part of the network or process are equally important. (Law 379-393).

The idea that human and non-human agents have an equal role in the network does not mean

that all actors are exchangeable. Humans obviously cannot be treated as machines, but it is all

about the network formed by all actors. Furthermore, the non-human actors can be anything, for

example a database or a webpage (virtual) as well as a computer or a tablet (physical). ANT

2 For an overview of Linked Data: Tom Heath and Christian Bizer (2011) Linked Data: Evolving the Web into a

Global Data Space (1st edition). Synthesis Lectures on the Semantic Web: Theory and Technology, 1:1, 1-136.

Morgan & Claypool. http://linkeddatabook.com/editions/1.0/

http://linkeddatabook.com/editions/1.0/








17

further studies how these networks work (or should work) for knowledge creation, reuse,

sharing and retrieval.

2.5 Primary and secondary sources

The creation of knowledge is based on sources. Two types of sources can be distinguished:

primary and secondary sources. Primary sources reflect the personal point of view of

individuals who actually participated in or observed a certain historical event. Primary sources

are created during the event or at a later date. The second category is the secondary sources,

which are works that interpret or analyse an historical event. In general, secondary sources are

based on primary sources. (University of California Berkeley - Library)

Considering the above definitions oral history can be defined as a primary source. Context is

important for interpretation and analysis of primary sources. From a user perspective oral

histories are sources which cannot be understood without knowledge of a particular event. In

order to give a complete presentation of oral history and its context, it is necessary to know who

the users are. Unfortunately, future users are not easy to identify, however, when curated

collections3 are considered different users can be distinguished: the curators and ultimate users

(De Jong et al. 15)

2.6 Users

The ultimate users are professionals as well as the general public and they all have several

characteristics when searching through curated collections. Huurnink et al. analysed the

behaviour of end users with the collection of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision as

case study. They note in their study that the main part of the end users is media professionals.

First, they identified a ‘typical’ search session (i.e. duration of a user’s visit when searching the

collection). The researchers made a distinction between search sessions which lead to orders

and the sessions which did not lead to orders of audio or audiovisual content. A typical search

session has duration of approximately one minute (half of the investigated sessions) and

contains one query. When a session leads to an order, the search session duration is much longer

(ca 8 minutes). (Huurnink et al. 1186-1188)

3 In this context a curated collection is a collection of a cultural heritage institution, in other words a collection

created and managed by professionals (curators).

18

Secondly, the queries contain mostly keywords (programme titles) and the advanced search

option is hardly used (9%). Broadcast titles are frequently used queries and this implies

navigational and known-item searches. This is shown for both types of queries (leading to

orders or not). The researchers defined three types of orders: programme, story (subsection of a

programme and a cohesive unit predefined in archive) and fragments (subsection of a

programme defined by user not predefined in archive). The analysed orders show that half of

the total amount of orders frequest fragments. (Huurnink et al. 1198-1195)

In this case study end users know what they are searching for and know how to work with

audiovisual archives. The queries are very specific and the fragments (here: complete

programmes are (pre)defined fragments) are used for professional (footage) use (i.e. compiling

audiovisual fragments into another format or using those fragments as context in other

programmes). In other words, these end users are aware of the existence of this material,

because they use it for professional purpose. What about the general public? Do they use

audiovisual content and more specific: oral history?

2.7 Digitisation

Cultural heritage institutions digitise large parts of their collections, but the usage of these

digitised collections is questionable. Olivier Nyiruburaga researched the use of digitised

museum collections in history education. The target group in his research are secondary school

pupils aged 13-14 years. One of his conclusions is that digitised collections are not popular

among these pupils. In their papers pupils never refer to cultural institutions which have relevant

collections and information that the pupils can use as sources. Nyiruburaga points out that

cultural heritage institutions, and therefore their digitised collections, are invisible to the pupils.

The visibility and findability of the collections on the web need to be increased. Nyiruburaga

concludes that when digitised collections are not indexed by search engines, it is very unlikely

that pupils will find them and use them. (Nyiruburaga 88)

What does this mean for the presentation of (oral) history collections or collections of cultural

heritage institutions in general? First, linking is necessary, according to Nyiruburaga, but he

found that cultural heritage professionals (curators) have difficulties with linking. It is a hurdle

they are seemingly not willing to take, because it means they have to organise and to interpret

the content. This is traditionally a task for historians; curators collect, select, conserve and make

collections accessible. (Nyiruburaga 85) Curators create closed webs and therefore content is

difficult to find and to share. However, when making collections visible on the web, linking is

necessary and this in line with Berners-Lee vision on open webs.

19

Furthermore, when linking is applied in web presentations of cultural heritage, context has to be

added as well. Additional layers can guide computers and let them interpret content (i.e.

meaningful content), as Berners-Lee describes, but these layers are equally necessary for users

to understand the content and in particular oral history content. How can oral history sources be

presented in context? How does this affect the use of oral history? In this thesis several oral

history projects will be compared in order to investigate the use and reuse of oral history as

information source.

20

3 CASE STUDIES

The previous chapters gave an overview of theories of oral history and information science.

This chapter focuses on the practice of the access, use and reuse of oral history. When searching

for best practice many examples were found, but for this thesis project Verteld Verleden and the

institute Aletta have been chosen. Verteld Verleden is a project that rounded up this year and

Aletta was one of the partners in this project. Furthermore, because the oral history method was

firstly applied on minority groups such as women, choosing Aletta seemed natural.

3.1 Verteld Verleden

The goal of the project Verteld Verleden is to provide access to oral history collections through

technology. It was a funded project with a duration of two years. The website is used as portal

with descriptions of the collections and partners in the project. This project is an important

indicator of the progress on the use and reuse of oral history content as well as the innovative

character of developing a national oral history collection with federated search. The definition

of oral history in this project is interpreted broadly.

The objectives of Verteld Verleden were: (1) a focus on how to manage and to research spoken

word collections and (2) the technical aspects of making spoken word collections accessible.

(Verteld Verleden) Spoken word collections are not necessarily oral history collections, but they

also consist of audio and/or audiovisual material and therefore these collections can be of use

for the research questions of Verteld Verleden. Furthermore, the management and presentation

of both spoken word and oral history are similar.

Institutions that are partner in this project have to manage their own collections and when

necessary the collections will be managed elsewhere. The oral history collections of the partners

were used for the improvement of the accessibility of oral history content. Those project

examples will be shortly described in this chapter. The various projects will be compared and

investigated with each other in the next chapter. Table 3.1 gives an overview of these project

examples and see Appendix I for descriptions of the partners.

Examples Partners Description

Buchenwald4 NIOD, Universiteit Twente cluster

Human Media Interaction (UT /

HMI)

38 interviews made by the foundation of Former

Buchenwalders. The interviews are fully

accessible and searchable at an advanced level.

Brandgrens5 Dienst Stedebouw en Website focuses on the bombing and the

4 <http://www.buchenwald.nl> (visited on 01-08-2012) 5 <http://appl.gemeentearchief.rotterdam.nl/brandgrens/> (visited on 01-08-2012)

http://www.buchenwald.nl/






http://appl.gemeentearchief.rotterdam.nl/brandgrens/












21

Examples Partners Description

Volkshuisvesting Rotterdam,

Historisch Museum Rotterdam,

Gemeentearchief Rotterdam

boundary of the destroyed area of the city (i.e.

‘Brandgrens’) and more generally to Rotterdam

during the Second World War and the

reconstruction.

Levende

Herinneringen6

Foundation ‘Het Gebaar’, Noterik

BV

Capturing memories of the Dutch Indonesian

culture in video interviews.

Getuigen

Verhalen7

NIOD, DANS, Erfgoed van de

Oorlog

Website contains interviews to keep the memory

of the Second World War alive. Three types of

interviews are presented:

1. publicly accessible and searchable

2. publicly accessible, but not searchable

3. not publicly accessible

Willem Frederik

Hermans8

Stichting Digitale Bibliotheek voor

de Nederlandse Letteren, Stichting

Willem Frederik Hermans instituut,

UT / HMI

Promoting knowledge about the oeuvre and

person Willem Frederik Hermans. On the

website are also audio/audiovisual fragments

available which are publicly accessible and

searchable.

Aletta -

Interviewarchief9

Aletta Interviews from the Aletta archive which are

made publicly accessible and searchable.

Table 3.1 Examples oral history projects

The different institutions have constructed different online presentations of their oral history

collections and are used as project examples of Verteld Verleden. In the final meeting of the

project the results were presented and there were several lessons learned in this project. First,

the accessibility of spoken word collections:

Objective Method/means Technique Explanation technique

Improving

access Speech

recognition Indexation audio Speech to text

Aligning speech and text

Enrichment

source Detecting entities (e.g. persons, places)

Linking with thesaurus terms

Search Flexible search by multiple (time

labelled) information layers

Linking Within and between

multimedia formats

User interface Presentation search results

Exploration of collections

Table 3.2 Improving access (Verteld Verleden – presentation Roeland Ordelman)

The table above shows that to improve access is not a simple matter. Improving access involves

management of collections and research and more issues appeared. Table 3.3 summarises the

6 <http://lhwebtv2.noterik.com/webtv2/generic.home> (visited on 01-08-2012) 7 <http://getuigenverhalen.nl/> (visited on 01-08-2012) 8 <http://www.willemfrederikhermans.nl/> and <http://hmi.ewi.utwente.nl/hermans/> (visited on 01-08-2012) 9 <http://www.aletta.nu/aletta/content/32407/interviewarchief> (visited on 01-08-2012)

http://lhwebtv2.noterik.com/webtv2/generic.home













http://getuigenverhalen.nl/






http://www.willemfrederikhermans.nl/








http://hmi.ewi.utwente.nl/hermans/












http://www.aletta.nu/aletta/content/32407/interviewarchief













22

difficulties and issues of management and research as it was experienced during the project

Verteld Verleden.

Objective Issues

Management Oral history management is very diverse and ranges from very accurate to almost no

management

In general, the access to oral history collections is very limited

Pioneers use different professional infrastructures

The possibilities of modern techniques are recognised, but the institutions do not have the

knowledge and/or the means to realise fundamental progression

Research The reuse and access of oral history collections face several problems:

1. the conservation of sources

2. making sources accessible

3. privacy

4. switch of mentality

5. cooperation with ICT

Table 3.3 Management and Research issues (Verteld Verleden – presentation Roeland Ordelman)

The issues of the management and research of oral history collections, raises other questions

and discussion. The first question is: what is needed? When transmitting knowledge, four issues

are relevant:

1. best practices;

2. planning step by step;

3. several subjects have to be considered when planning a project:

a. digitisation;

b. conversion of formats and streamlining standardisation;

c. online searching and access;

d. linking collections with external sources;

e. securing privacy and copyrights;

f. privacy and intellectual property rights;

4. creating a service model.

(Verteld Verleden – presentation Roeland Ordelman)

The creation of a plan that includes the above issues also depends on other questions. These

questions involve mainly research on the precise wishes and requirements of users (collection

managers and researchers) such as the design of a user interface. Furthermore, the role of

technology has to be investigated in order to ease the use of technologies at the institutions.

Technology can also be used to answer very specific research questions. The remaining issue in

this discussion is the role of the shortcomings of automatic annotation. (Ibid.)

Therefore, the wishes of the users have to be linked to the technological possibilities and the

creation of an infrastructure with a collection portal. Dutch oral history collections need to be

23

made accessible more extensively. For the future the collections on Verteld Verleden need to be

completed, tools (workspace) have to be made for researchers and automatic linking with

external relevant sources should have been realised. (Ibid.)

When and how all these future wishes could be realised is the next issue and is not discussed in

this thesis. For now the results and conclusions of the project are relevant, because they are the

first steps in creating further progress in the access to oral history collections. There were

various lessons learned during the Verteld Verleden project as is shown in Table 3.3. These

lessons should be guidance for further research.

Lessons

learned on Issues Further Explanation issues

Distributed

approach Metadata

format Metadata of oral history are difficult to map in Dublin Core (DC) (e.g.

time-coded metadata extracted from speech-recognition)

Metadata

format when institutions have their own formats for oral history, then there is

chosen for DC in which can be made references to other media

Metadata Sets are needed to realise harvesting (i.e. automatically extraction of

metadata from server information supplier. For example, not harvesting

everything from the DANS collection.

Streaming Different protocols

Streaming The link extraction of every collection is different

Streaming Login model for collections without a public access (control)

Embedding Search Institutions should make their collections searchable on their own

websites and should embed single fragments

Authorisation For now there is only authorised embedding, because of separate

arrangements per institution which are not yet implemented

Collections Archive Having oral history in archive does not mean it is easy to extract from the

archive

Digitisation Having oral history digitised does not mean that it is accessible, because: 1. there is no link between the source and the metadata

2. when the collection is digitised it is not always streaming

accessible or it has a different/wrong format

Metadata More metadata issues: 1. the available metadata is not digital or in a difficult format (ms-

word, excel)

2. metadata in a unique scheme that is solely used by one (person or

department in an) institution

Technology State-of-the-

art The use of tools is in practice difficult; for example the speech recognition

chain: digitising, ‘putting in the system’, transport, putting result in

system, making searchable, representation in interface

Identifiers Persistent identifiers in the end not used as requirement

Search Fragment and facet search are available, but strongly depend on available

granular metadata

Interface Innovative interfaces focused on user needs are not developed, because of

lack of time

Table 3.4 Lessons learned Verteld Verleden (Verteld Verleden – presentation Roeland Ordelman)

24

The conclusions of the project are (1) that the main focus was the infrastructure and (2) that the

use of collections was not enough investigated. However, the project gained knowledge and

experience on oral history collections and it forms a base for further research and to expand the

access to collections. (Ibid.)

Most institutes that were partner in the project Verteld Verleden delivered their collections to

the project. The examples that were presented during the final session of Verteld Verleden are

examples of presenting oral history online as well as other oral history projects in which Aletta

participated. These projects will be more specific analysed in the next chapter. As mentioned

before, the institute that will be highlighted in this thesis is Aletta.

3.2 Aletta

The Aletta E-Quality Institute for Gender equality and Women’s History (Aletta) has the

mission to share knowledge and information about women’s history and their current position in

society. Aletta also wants to encourage and promote research on these subjects as well as

creating new knowledge on women’s position in society and women’s rights and empowerment.

The collection of the institute contains a broad range of materials, including oral history. The

ambition of Aletta is to be a partner in knowledge and expertise for a broad group, but with a

focus on academic scholars, university student, secondary school teachers and students. (Aletta)

The role of Aletta in Verteld Verleden is to deliver oral history collections to the project,

drawing on a rich archive. Aletta was one of the first-users of speech recognition technology for

making oral history collections accessible. In addition, the institute has thorough knowledge in

research on oral history with a broad network and user base. Aletta is an obvious partner in

Verteld Verleden, because oral history is a widely used methodology in gender studies. (Verteld

Verleden)

What are the experiences of Aletta concerning the use of oral history content? Evelien

Rijsbosch, senior information specialist and project manager at Aletta, shared her views and her

opinion is that the reuse of oral history needs more research (see Appendix II for a report on the

interview). Aletta collects and creates oral history collections and the interview archive that is

accessible on their website is a pilot of accessing oral history. Rijsbosch explains that Aletta is

developing a database in which all descriptions and metadata of the interviews are collected.

The use of a database is necessary for harvesting and therefore reusing oral history content.

The interview archive, for example, contains for now a few interviews, but when the database is

on air all interviews should be available. This means that the interviews are not yet part of the

25

federated search on their website. The interface of the interview database will be comparable to

the other interfaces of the other databases. Rijsbosch receives reactions of users on the oral

history content and their feedback is very helpful for making oral history content accessible for

reuse.

Since Aletta is partner of Verteld Verleden the use Dublin Core as metadata standard is

important for exchanging metadata as well as to improve harvesting. Furthermore, Rijsbosch

points out that it is essential to collect as many context as possible, because oral history is a very

particular source that cannot be understood without context about the interviewee, the event and

the interviewer. She explains that Aletta collects all this information, but they are searching for

solutions on the online presentation of context.

The website is one part of the online presentation of Aletta; they also represent themselves on

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and a blog. The use of social media is an additional layer for the

presentation and can be used for experiments and to reach a younger audience. At the same time

Aletta wants to ensure their position as a reliable research partner. On YouTube Aletta opened a

channel on which trailers are posted for promoting the collection as well as videos that were

specially made for presentation on YouTube.

Rijsbosch also showed the actual portal of Verteld Verleden on which users can search through

the collections: verteldverleden.devel.noterik.com. This part was not found on the other website

of Verteld Verleden (see above), but she explained that the project struggled in the beginning

with the search option of the portal and they did not want to present a not working search

engine.

The project Verteld Verleden is an opportunity to explore technology to ease the accessibility of

oral history. Unfortunately, the reuse of oral history was not investigated, because of lack of

time. Rijsbosch is very enthusiastic about the possibilities speech recognition offers and she

hopes that this technology will be further developed as well as more research on reuse of oral

history, because little is known on the reuse of oral history sources.

3.3 Definitions of oral history

The first chapter of this thesis is an introduction to oral history. A short summary of that chapter

is that oral history is understood as a theory as well as a method and it exists in four forms:

1. the original interview;

2. the recorded version of the interview;

3. the written transcript;

26

4. interpretation of the interview material.

When oral history has to be reused, it is important that these forms are well documented. The

recorded version of the interview is a documentation of the original interview and the written

transcript and interpretation of the material help to let the user understand the interview as oral

history. This means that technology is important, because the quality of the material is decisive

for a good representation and usability of the interview. In this case oral history as it exists in

the original interview is a primary source. The interpretation of oral history is an additional

form and is the view of the interviewer. The written transcript is not an exact reproduction of

the interview, because it misses the orality of the original (e.g. use of the voice (intonation) and

use of dialect).

The four forms of oral history contains several elements:

1. orality (spoken word);

2. narrative (composition & structure);

3. performance during interview of both narrator and interviewer;

4. subjectivity (point of view narrator);

5. memory → active process; when is the interview held? Short after the event or years

later?;

6. mutability (narrator - interviewer) (work in process);

7. collaboration between the narrator and the interviewer;

8. coexistence of different versions of a narrative.

Oral history is influenced by the backgrounds of both interviewee and interviewer and therefore

a narrator can tell different types of stories of one particular event to different interviewers.

There is always a reaction of the narrator on the interviewer, this is part of oral history and when

oral history is reused the user should be aware of that peculiarity.

The project Verteld Verleden uses the definition that oral history can be considered an interview

with a respondent with the intention to capture his specific personal memory as a historical

source. This can be both an individual memory with specific knowledge on something or a more

comprehensive collection of quite similar interviews. During oral history interviews the

interviewer specifically inquires after details which are historically relevant, because it is

additional knowledge to other sources. Furthermore, an oral history testimony is a primary

source: the information reflects exactly what the interviewee said. This distinguishes oral

history interviews with normal interviews, because in the latter one an editor made a selection

from the material. (Verteld Verleden)

27

Aletta’s definition of oral history is about people who witnessed important events and can tell

firsthand stories. In this way oral history contextualises analogue archives and creates a more

complete comprehension view of history. The interviewers of Aletta use the ‘life story

approach’. This means that they do not only inquire about a specific event, but also at the full

life story of the interviewee. (Aletta - Oral history)

The definitions used by Verteld Verleden are quite similar, but not exactly the same. When

comparing these two definitions with all the peculiarities mentioned in the first chapter, the

definitions make not a distinction between the different forms (original interview, recorded

interview, transcript or interpretation). The interaction between interviewee and interviewer is

not mentioned. On the other hand, the websites are made for a public who may have interest in

the specific subjects of the interviews and therefore a short introduction is seen as enough.

In the next chapter the above presentations of oral history are analysed using the theories of the

previous chapters as well as the lessons learned from the project Verteld Verleden.

28

4 Projects analysis

The focus in this thesis is the use and reuse of oral history. The difference between those two

forms is that use is the method to capture oral history as a historical source. When the oral

history source is made, for example an audiovisual recorded interview, then it can be reused.

This reusing of oral history is often the main objective for a presentation of oral history that is

accessible for a broad audience.

In this chapter the projects of Verteld Verleden will be analysed first by the forms of the oral

history presentation and the use of oral history as a method. Then the presentation will be

analysed by using information science theories on contextualisation, semantic web and

knowledge as well as the lessons learned from the Verteld Verleden project. The technological

aspects will be investigated and the projects will be compared with other (additional) forms of

presenting audiovisual material on the web. Whenever data is available, the use and reuse of

oral history will be investigated.

4.1 Use of oral history

The project examples of Verteld Verleden are presented through online access (website). What

can users find on those presentations? The use of oral history as method is shown in Table 4.1.

The forms of oral history and the specifics on the methodology of oral history are presented

which were used for capturing oral history as source. The forms of oral history are in this table:

(1) recorded interviews, (2) written transcript and (3) interpretation (i.e. using primary sources

for creating secondary sources).

Projects examples Forms of oral

history Description

Buchenwald (1) Audiovisual

recorded interviews (3) Interpretation

Interview with a description of the interview and personal

details of the interviewee. Interview in Dutch.

The description contains a place, date and duration as well as

an extensive summary of the interview.

The interviews are used for an online accessible documentary

(“Vooral niet opvallen” Nederlanders in Buchenwald. Emiel

Bakker by order of NIOD (2008))

Brandgrens (1) Audiovisual

recorded interviews Interview with a description that includes a short summary and

place and date of birth. Interview in Dutch.

The interviews are used for a documentary (In Mei -

Rotterdam 1940. Marc Schmidt and Joop de Jong (2007))

Levende

Herinneringen (1) Audiovisual

recorded interviews Interview with a very extensive description when available.

The interviews are divided in chapters. For each chapter has

been made a description. Interview in Dutch

29

Projects examples Forms of oral

history Description

The interviewers are introduced at the website, but not at the

interviews.

Getuigen Verhalen (1) Audiovisual

recorded interviews Interview with a short description of the interviewee and a

short summary of the interview. Not all interviews are in Dutch and those are without a

translation.

Willem Frederik

Hermans (1) Audio recorded

interviews The audio fragments used on this website are tapes from the

archive of the Willem Frederik Hermans institute. The tapes include interviews with and recitation by Willem

Frederik Hermans.

Aletta -

Interviewarchief (1) Audiovisual

recorded interviews (3) Interpretation

Interview with a description and summary as well as a

biography of the interviewee.

Table 4.1 Use of oral history as method

In most project examples audiovisual recorded interviews are used as form to capture oral

history. Written transcripts were used for aligning text with audio to enable search within the

interview, but the transcripts were not published on the website. In the comparison and analysis

of used technologies (paragraph 4.3) the alignment will be further explained.

4.2 Reuse of oral history

When oral history is used as method it is captured as source in order to reuse the oral history

material. This means that the presentation of oral history material has to be very accurate,

because it has to be clear for users how to understand the content. Therefore, the content needs

context. In this thesis context is understood in primary (first-hand material) and secondary

(interpretations and reflections of the information) sources. Table 4.2 gives an overview of the

context elements of the oral history material.

Projects

examples Primary sources Secondary sources

Buchenwald - Audiovisual interviews

with survivors of

Buchenwald - Photographic material

- Filming of the

Buchenwald concentration

camp

- Visual material such as

paintings and drawings

- Descriptions of the interviews - An academic historical introduction Nederlanders in

Buchenwald by Dr Martijn Eickhoff

- Documentary “Vooral niet opvallen” Nederlanders in

Buchenwald. Emiel Bakker by order of NIOD (2008)

Brandgrens - Audiovisual interviews

with witnesses of

bombardment Rotterdam

1940 - Archives (Rotterdam

Archive)

- Descriptions of the interviews - Thematic stories on the website intertwined with the

sources

- Audio tour which can be downloaded in two parts:

roadmaps and audio fragments

- Brandgrens navigator: a geographical map on which the

30

Projects

examples Primary sources Secondary sources

- Images

- (Audio)visual content from

archive

- Diaries

different sources can be shown as well as the boundary of

the destroyed part of the city and some figures on this

particular event

Levende

Herinneringen - Audiovisual interviews - Descriptions of the interviews

Getuigen

Verhalen - Audiovisual interviews - Descriptions of the interviews

- Interviews are used for thematic projects and each

project has a description

Willem Frederik

Hermans - Interviews (in audio and

written form) - Recitations by W.F.

Hermans

- Photographs by and of

W.F. Hermans

- Text (literature and poetry)

by W.F. Hermans

- Descriptions of the interviews (when available) - Documentaries (audio)

- Biography of W.F. Hermans

- Primary bibliography: overview of works by W.F.

Hermans

- Secondary bibliography: overview of works on W.F.

Hermans

- Reviews on works and life of W.F. Hermans

Aletta -

Interviewarchief - Audiovisual interviews - Descriptions of the interviews

- Links with oral history projects of Aletta (interviews

were made within the framework of these projects)

Table 4.2 Contextualisation of oral history

Oral history contains four forms (original interview, recorded interview, transcript and

interpretation) and interpretation is one of these forms. This can be confusing for understanding

oral history material as primary source. In this thesis, the description of the interview is

considered as a secondary source because it is an interpretation. This distinction serves to avoid

conflict with other sources that are interpretations.

The core of the projects is the interview (with an exception of the Willem Frederik Hermans

project). The oral history projects use both primary and secondary sources, but they present the

sources very differently and they use different sources. This raises another question: what is the

quality of the contextualisation? Is it clear for users how to understand the oral history project?

In most projects literature and oral history complement each other, but in some projects the oral

history is the only source (except for the interview description).

The projects use different interfaces to present the oral history content. The information science

theories from chapter 2 give a framework for understanding information in the given context.

Three different meanings of information can be distinguished: thing, knowledge or process.

These meanings are defined by Michael Buckland and categorised in four aspects of

information: entities or process and intangibility and tangibility:

1. Thing: tangible entity (data, document)

2. Knowledge: intangible entity

3. Process: intangible process (becoming informed) and tangible process (data processing)

31

Information as thing includes the digitally available data on the website. The main question here

is: is the content presented in a rich context?

The projects have as objective to make oral history accessible for a (general) public and to

inform them on the specific subject of the project. All project websites consist of things and the

knowledge is captured in the interviews, but they made different choices in the presentation of

things, knowledge as well as the process. In order to investigate the presentations another

understanding of information is used in this thesis.

Information can also be understood as sense, according to Tefko Saracevic. These senses exist

in three stages: narrow, broad and broader. This means that information can be a signal or

message (narrow); information can be turned into knowledge (broad) and information can be

presented and understood in context (broader). What do these definitions of information mean

for the project examples?

The presentations of information on the oral history websites have, as mentioned before, one

thing in common: the interviews with witnesses of a particular event in time. All interviews

have descriptions, but these descriptions vary from very plain to very extensive. Furthermore,

the provided context is very diverse. Most project examples use secondary sources and/or link it

to other (oral history) websites, but there is no standard procedure for presentations of oral

history. A reason for not providing a certain context is not always clear. It seems that some oral

history websites itself can be considered as a primary source and that this relates to the obtained

user group of the website.

When researchers are considered as the main users, than the provided context does not have to

be very extensive and the oral history website can be considered as a primary source. When the

general public is the user group than context is very important, because they are no experts on

the subject and they need to be well informed what they are accessing and how they should use

the information on the website.

Oral history is a subjective source and non expert users need additional information to

comprehend the interviews. How is this type of information provided on the websites? And for

whom are the websites made? Table 4.3 shows the user groups and the provided information.

The users are divided in two groups: researchers and the general public (this includes using the

information for educational purpose). The project information should provide (when available)

information on the content (date, author, place, title), the historical event (when, where, who

were involved, what) and a definition of oral history (i.e. interviews as subjective sources).

Furthermore, notifications on privacy (rightful claimant and user registration) and copyrights

should be made and these will be further explained in paragraph 4.4.

32

Project examples User group Project information

Buchenwald General public (Education explicitly

mentioned)

- Content information (interviews, not all content has

a description) - Historical event information

- Definition oral history

- Privacy user registration

- Copyrights

Brandgrens General public (Education explicitly

mentioned)

- Content information - Historical event information

- Privacy rightful claimant

- Copyrights

Levende Herinneringen - General public - Content information

Getuigen Verhalen - General public - Content information - Historical event information

- Definition oral history (subjectivity not mentioned)


- Copyrights

Willem Frederik

Hermans - Researchers - Content information

- Historical event


- Copyrights

Aletta -

Interviewarchief - Researchers - Content information

- Historical event information

- Definition oral history


- Copyrights

Table 4.3 Users

The provided information on the websites is in most cases enough information for the obtained

users. The Buchenwald project does not provide information about all content information;

especially the used images on the website are without specific information. This project and

Brandgrens both mention educational purpose of the oral history website. However, they do not

provide a ready-made package for teachers. Their assumption is probably that the information

on the website should be sufficient for educational use.

Levende Herinneringen is a website without much context, the specific user group is not

defined, but their aim is to pass on memories to the next generations. It seems that their focus is

the general public, but without context on their subject (the Netherlands Indies) it is

questionable whether it is interesting or comprehensible for the general public. The Willem

Frederik Hermans project and the Aletta – Interviewarchief have made their content accessible

for research purposes and the provided information on the content is sufficient. The Willem

Frederik Hermans project is different from the other projects, because it is about a person and

not an event.

The projects provide their information differently and the next question is on the access to their

information. Several issues influence making content accessible, for example the interface. This

33

is an important gate to the content for users. If it is not clear for users what content they are

dealing with, it is hard for them to understand the purpose of a website. In addition, the goal of

making oral history accessible is to inform a broad or specific public. This means that users

should be able to find the information.

In the next paragraph these aspects are further investigated. The focus in that paragraph is on

technological aspects, because the visual design of an interface is a subjective matter. Things

that should be clear are: who made the website, what information is on the website and for

whom is the website created?

4.3 Technological aspects

The presentation of oral history material on websites depends on the technological

requirements. For the projects examples the internet is used as infrastructure. In this paragraph

the semantic web standards of Tim Berners-Lee will be used for researching the needed

technological requirements. How can these requirements been linked to the lessons learned from

Verteld Verleden. These lessons are: distribution, embedding, collection and technological

issues.

4.3.1 Distribution

The difficulties found with the distribution can be divided in problems with metadata and

streaming. The metadata issues involve standards in order to extract time-coded metadata for

speech recognition and harvesting. Verteld Verleden used mainly Dublin Core, because of the

possibility to make references with other media. The streaming issues contain the use of

different protocols, not similar use of link extraction and login models for restricted available

access.

4.3.2 Embedding

The collections used in Verteld Verleden are hosted by the institutes themselves. One of the

lessons was that they should make these collections searchable and that they should embedded

single fragments on their own websites. The embedding involves also authorisation problems,

because the institutions used separate arrangements which were not implemented. This means

that single fragments cannot be displayed on the own website.

34

4.3.3 Collection

Issues on collections can be divided in archival, digitisation and metadata problems. First, it is

difficult to extract collections from the archive. Second, digitising collections does not mean

they are accessible, because there is no link between source and the metadata and without the

correct format it is not streaming accessible. Third, the used metadata are not digitally available

or in a difficult format (ms word or excel) and/or the scheme used for metadata is not a

generally used standard, but a unique scheme solely used within an organisation or by one

person.

4.3.4 Technology

The technology tools used in the project were hard to implement and several issues were not

investigated during the project. There was decided not to use persistent identifiers and an

innovative interface was not developed, because of lack of time. The use of fragment and facet

search depends strongly on the available metadata. It seems that technological development was

difficult, because the different institutes used different standards on almost everything which

causes a delay on development of a uniform interface and standards.

4.3.5 Findability and access

When creating an ideal access of oral history material it is necessary that the involved

institutions use uniform standards. However, this needs time and the reality is that there are too

many differences to realise this in a short period of time. For now it is necessary that institutions

are findable by users and that content on the websites are findable within the websites. When

users are searching information on a certain subject and an institute can provide that information

it is important users find the institute. In this paragraph the findability on the web is

investigated.

When people are searching for content on internet they use web search engines. In the

Netherlands the most popular search engine is Google (www.google.nl) (over 90%) followed by

Bing (www.bing.com) and Yahoo! (nl.yahoo.com) (both approximately 8%).10 In Table 4.4 the

findability of the project example websites are compared using keywords and the ranking of the

10 These data is bassed on the National Search Engine Monitor (http://www.iprospect.nl/our-world/iprospect-

onderzoek/nationale-search-engine-monitor 05-08-2012)

http://www.iprospect.nl/our-world/iprospect-onderzoek/nationale-search-engine-monitor























35

projects are shown. The keywords are based on the website descriptions and are in Dutch,

because all websites are in Dutch. When a keyword combination is not displayed on the first ten

results pages (ten results per page) the ranking is not shown in the table. The amount of results

are displayed after the ranking number. When results are eliminated from the results than the

visible ranking on the pages is used.

Project examples Keywords Google # ranking (on 05-08-2012)

Bing # ranking (on 05-08-2012)

Yahoo! # ranking (on 05-08-2012)

Buchenwald (1) Tweede Wereldoorlog (2) Concentratiekamp

(3) Buchenwald

(4) Overlevenden

1+2+3+4 #2 /

120,000 1+2+3 #2, #3 /

35,900

1+2+4 #72 / 55,700

1+3+4 #1 / 71,900

1+3 #3, #4, #5, #6 /

27,400

2+3+4 #1 / 15,500

2+3 #3 / 44,400

2+4 #21 / 3,690,00

3+4 #1 / 15,300

1+2+3+4 #3 / 92.100 1+2+3 #4 / 17,500

1+2+4 #50 / 21,900

1+3+4 #2 / 27,600

1+3 #2 / 49,500

2+3+4 #1, #2 / 34,500

2+3 #1, #4 / 90,900

2+4 # 21 / 33,200

3+4 #1, #2 / 31,500

1+2+3+4 #3, #5 /

26,800 1+2+3 #4 / 17,300

1+2+4 #55 / 21,500

1+3+4 #2, #4 /

27,600

1+3 #2 / 40,000

2+3+4 # 1, #2 /

34,900

2+3 #1, #4 / 90,900

2+4 #23 / 32,800

3+4 #1, #2 / 31,300

Brandgrens (1) Tweede Wereldoorlog (2) Rotterdam

(3) Bombardement

(4) Brandgrens

1+2+3+4 #1, #2 /

87,900 1+2+3 #6 / 74,500

1+2+4 #1, #2, #3 /

109,000

1+3+4 #1, #2 / 88,00

1+2 #4 / 713,000

1+3 #20 / 195,000

1+4 #20 / 195,000

2+3+4 #1 / 6,200

2+3 #5 / 299,000

2+4 #1 / 6,980

3+4 #1 / 109,000

1+2+3+4 #1, #2, #4 /

31,300 1+2+3 #3 / 106,000

1+2+4 #1, #2, #3 /

30,700

1+3+4 #1, #3, #4 /

31,300

1+2 #2 / 1,560,000

1+3 #36 / 338,000

1+4 #1, #2, #3 /

30,300

2+3+4 #1, #2, #3 /

26,000

2+3 #2, #6 / 428,000

2+4 #1, #2, #4 /

27,200

3+4 #1, #4, #5 /

33,900

1+2+3+4 #1, #2, #4 /

30,700 1+2+3 #3 / 143,000

1+2+4 #1, #2, #3/

30,700

1+3+4 #1, #3, #4 /

32,100

1+2 #2, #4 /

1,730,000

1+3 #40 / 344,000

1+4 #1, #2, #3 /

26,600

2+3+4 #1, #2, #3 /

26,100

2+3 #2, #6 / 363,000

2+4 #1, #2, #4 /

22,300

3+4 #1, #4, #5 /

30,700

Levende

Herinneringen (1) Nederlands Indie (2) Indische identiteit

(3) Herinnering

Getuigen Verhalen (1) Tweede Wereldoorlog (2) Nederland

(3) Getuigen

(4) Overlevenden

1+2+3+4 #4 /

224,000 1+2+3 #4 / 287,000

1+3+4 #4 / 302,000

1+3 #1 / 347,000

1+4 #86 / 125,000

2+3+4 #21 / 92,600

2+3 #7 / 3,260,000

3+4 #6 / 142,000

1+2+3+4 #13 /

35,300 1+2+3 #2 / 470,000

1+3+4 #25 / 27,400

1+3 #2, #9 / 612,000

2+3+4 #2 / 31,600

2+3 #25 / 2,280,000

3+4 #49 / 46,400

1+2+3+4 #13 /

31,200 1+2+3 #2 / 341,000

1+3+4 #27 / 27,100

1+3 #2, #9 / 473,000

2+3+4 #2 / 33,200

2+3 #26 / 2,120,000

3+4 #55 / 46,600

Willem Frederik

Hermans (1) Willem Frederik

Hermans (2) Persoon

(3) Oeuvre

1+2+3 #2, #3 /

442,000 1+2 #3, #4 / 193,000

1+3 #3, #4 / 34,100

1 #2 / 1,390,000

1+2+3 #1, #2 /

78,000 1+2 #1, #2 / 76,300

1+3 #1, #2 / 32,100

1 #1, #3 / 1,080,000

1+2+3 #1, #2 /

41,100 1+2 #1, #2 / 76,800

1+3 #1, #2 / 26,700

1 #1, #3 / 824,000

Aletta -

Interviewarchief (1) Tweede Feministische

Golf (2) Nederland

(3) Sleutelfiguren

1+2+3 #1 / 4,060 1+3 #1 / 4,270

Table 4.4 Ranking websites project examples

36

The above table shows the results of a known item search. In this case the task is to find the

websites of the project examples with the given keywords. The ranking (1/n, n=ranking number)

indicates how well pages can be found. For example, the query with the keywords ‘Tweede

Feministische Golf’ and ‘Sleutelfiguren’ gives a ranking 1/1=1. Furthermore, the average

ranking is calculated per combination of keywords and there will be no distinction made

between the search engines, because that is not the objective in this thesis. For example, the

combination of keywords ‘Willem Frederik Hermans’ and ‘Persoon’ gives the rankings 1/3=

0.33 (Google), 1/1= 1 (Bing) and 1/1=1) Yahoo! the average of these three rankings is

(0.33+1+1)/3=0.78.

Project examples Keywords Keyword

combination Google

ranking (on 05-08-

2012)

Bing

ranking (on 05-08-

2012)

Yahoo!

ranking (on 05-08-

2012)

Average

ranking (on 05-08-

2012)

Buchenwald (1) Tweede

Wereldoorlog (2) Concentratiekamp

(3) Buchenwald

(4) Overlevenden

1+2+3+4 1+2+3

1+2+4

1+3+4

1+2

1+3

1+4

2+3+4

2+3

2+4

3+4

0.50 0.50

0.01

1

0

0.33

0

1

0.33

0.05

1

0.33 0.25

0.02

0.50

0

0.50

0

1

1

0.05

1

0.33 0.25

0.02

0.50

0

0.50

0

1

1

0.04

1

0.39 0.33

0.02

0.67

0

0.44

0

1

0.78

0.05

1

Average (m=total keyword combinations) m=11 0.43 0.42 0.42 0.42

Brandgrens (1) Tweede

Wereldoorlog (2) Rotterdam

(3) Bombardement

(4) Brandgrens

1+2+3+4 1+2+3

1+2+4

1+3+4

1+2

1+3

1+4

2+3+4

2+3

2+4

3+4

1 0.17

1

1

0.25

0.05

0.05

1

0.2

1

1

1 0.33

1

1

0.50

0.03

1

1

0.50

1

1

1 0.33

1

1

0.50

0.03

1

1

0.50

1

1

1 0.28

1

1

0.42

0.04

0.68

1

0.4

1

1


Levende

Herinneringen (1) Nederlands Indie (2) Indische identiteit

(3) Herinnering

1+2+3 1+2

1+3

2+3

0 0

0

0

0 0

0

0

0 0

0

0

0 0

0

0

Average (m=total keyword combinations) m=4 0 0 0 0

Getuigen Verhalen (1) Tweede

Wereldoorlog (2) Nederland

(3) Getuigen

(4) Overlevenden

1+2+3+4 1+2+3

1+2+4

1+3+4

1+2

1+3

1+4

2+3+4

2+3

2+4

3+4

0.25 0.25

0

0.25

0

1

0.01

0.05

0.14

0

0.17

0.08 0.50

0

0.04

0

0.50

0

0.50

0.04

0

0.02

0.08 0.50

0

0.04

0

0.50

0

0.50

0.04

0

0.02

0.14 0.42

0

0.11

0

0.67

0

0.35

0.07

0

0.07


Willem Frederik

Hermans (1) Willem Frederik

Hermans 1+2+3 1+2

0.50 0.33

1 1

1 1

0.83 0.78

37

Project examples Keywords Keyword

combination Google

ranking (on 05-08-

2012)

Bing

ranking (on 05-08-

2012)

Yahoo!

ranking (on 05-08-

2012)

Average

ranking (on 05-08-

2012)

(2) Persoon

(3) Oeuvre

1+3

1

0.33

0.50

1

1

1

1

0.78

0.83

Average (m=total keyword combinations) m=4 0.42 1 1 0.81

Aletta -

Interviewarchief (1) Tweede

Feministische Golf (2) Nederland

(3) Sleutelfiguren

1+2+3 1+2

1+3

2+3

1 0

1

0

0 0

0

0

0 0

0

0

0.33 0

0.33

0

Average (m=total keyword combinations) m=4 0.50 0 0 0.17

Table 4.5 Average ranking project websites

The results in the table show great differences between the websites. However, the ranking is

only an indication of whether website can be found with search engines or not. Willem Frederik

Hermans (average ranking 0.81) and Brandgrens (average ranking 0.71) seem to be the

websites that are best found. Buchenwald (average ranking 0.42) and Getuigen Verhalen

(average ranking 0.34) also have a rather good ranking, but Aletta - Interviewarchief (average

ranking 0.17) and Levende Herinneringen (average ranking 0) are hardly founded.

There can be several explanations for the great variety in ranking. For example, the websites

that have a very specific subject or can be found with specific keywords are more likely to be

high ranked than websites that are without such a specific subject or keywords. Other reasons

are probably based on the metadata issues mentioned in the lessons learned of Verteld Verleden

and the linking part of the websites. In this case the keywords do not include oral history,

because the objective of the websites is a specific event and oral history is a method for

presentation. However, oral history content is the main part of the information on the websites

and for this thesis it is interesting to investigate if that specific content can be found through

web search.

In order to investigate this, known-item search is used for retrieving oral history content.

Interviews are the main elements on the websites and from each website three interviews will be

used. From the interviews that have been made searchable with speech recognition a specific

fragment will be taken and the transcript will be used for the known-item search. For this search

the results of the website will be compared with the results of the web search engine Google

(web search). The fragment used for the search consists of one word that can also be found in

the description of the interview.

Project example Keyword Found fragments within

website project Results in Google

Buchenwald Quarantaine 8 fragments in 7 interviews 11 interviews found

goes immediately to keyword

in fragment

0

rozentuin 7 fragments in 7 interviews 0

38

Project example Keyword Found fragments within

website project Results in Google

15 interviews found

Spionage 4 fragments in 1interview 2 interviews found

0

Brandgrens Coolsingel 12 fragments in 4 interviews 4 interviews found

29 results #1 link to fragments website

Brandgrens

Kazerne 21 fragments in 4 interviews 4 interviews found


Brandgrens

Haven 9 fragments in 4 interviews 4 interviews found


Brandgrens

Levende

Herinneringen Knil 65 results, no specific

fragments, but references to

chapter of interview

0

nieuw-guinea 37 results, no specific



0

Baboe 8 results, no specific



0

Getuigen Verhalen Molukken 2 fragments in 2 interviews 24 interviews found

5 of 24 interviews free

accessible

60 results First ten results are links to

interviews on website Getuigen

Verhalen

hollandse schouwburg 4 fragments in 4 interviews 2 interviews found


accessible

3 results results #1 and #2 are links to

interviews on website Getuigen

Verhalen

Wilhelmina 25 fragments in 16 interviews 4 interviews found


accessible

4 results results #2, #3 and #4 are links

to interviews on website

Getuigen Verhalen

Willem Frederik

Hermans Professoren 10 fragments in 5 interviews

5 interviews found

0

Acacia 0 0

acacia’s 9 fragments in 3 interviews 3 interviews found

1 result no fragment of interview

Aletta -

Interviewarchief vrouwenhulpverlening 107 results 0

Lesbisch 73 results 0

Gezin 77 results 0

Table 4.6 Interview fragments search

The search results on the websites are presented very differently and in some cases the results of

the fragments differ from the interview results. Furthermore, Google could not retrieve the

interview fragments in most queries only the fragments from Brandgrens and Getuigen

Verhalen were found. The presentation of the results (see Appendix III for screenshots of

examples) shows the fragments as well as interviews. However, the found fragments are not

39

always a part of the found interviews (e.g. Getuigen Verhalen). Sometimes, more interviews are

found than fragments (e.g. Getuigen Verhalen and Buchenwald).

The technology that is used should lead straight to the keyword in the fragment. This means that

the keyword is found in an interview and the search result is a fragment that starts a few seconds

before this keyword. The technology is based on speech recognition and is developed at the

Twente University. Automatic speech recognition and alignment of text and audio are the basic

parts. This means that words used in the interview that can be found are based on available text

data (e.g. written transcriptions). (Ordelman 17)

Most projects use the same technology and the found fragments start just before the searched

keyword. This is used by: Buchenwald, Brandgrens, Willem Frederik Hermans and Aletta -

Interviewarchief. In the result lists only fragments were shown, with an exception of

Buchenwald in the results are also interviews which do not start before the specific keyword.

Getuigen Verhalen finds also fragments without the specific keyword and not all interviews are

in Dutch, but it seems that the Dutch translation is used as transcript to align the text with the

audio. It would have been nice when the interviews had subtitles. Furthermore, on this website

fragments and interviews are presented separately and the interviews do not contain a fragment

with the searched keyword, but the keyword is a tag of the interview. The results list is therefore

not clean and it is possible that not all fragments are found. If interviews are not found, the

problem with these interviews could be that the quality of the audio material is not good enough

for a very specific search and sometimes the interviewees speak unclear for the user to

understand the interview.

The results of Levende Herinneringen are parts of an interview. The description of these

interviews is very extensive, but the queries do not result in specific fragments of an interview.

The results presentation of the Aletta - Interviewarchief is a quite indistinctively overview,

because four fragments are presented per page and it is not clear in a glance how many

fragments in one interview are found. The presentation interface of Getuigen Verhalen gives a

clear overview of all the results and also shows the transcription in which the keyword is found.

Brandgrens also shows the transcript. The other projects do not show a part of the transcript.

Getuigen Verhalen makes a clear distinction between free accessible interviews and interviews

with restricted access. This affects the results of the keyword queries. Privacy and copyright are

issues institutions have to take into account when making interviews accessible on a website.

40

4.4 Privacy and copyrights

The presentation of interviews depends on the restrictions concerning privacy and copyrights. In

Table 4.3 privacy and copyrights are two of the elements of the project information. The privacy

statements can be divided in privacy for the rightful claimant and privacy for the users. Privacy

concerning the rightful claimants protects the interviewees and the use of their stories. When

interviews can only be viewed under restrictions, users can register or have to contact the

institution for viewing the interview. This is the other part of privacy; the registered user

information can only be used by the institute under restriction.

The other issue is the copyright on the content. This is not particular for oral history content, but

causes some difficulties for presenting the primary sources and the context (secondary sources).

When the restrictions are very tight, institutions cannot provide the context they want to present.

That means that the oral history content is without full context and this can be a problem for

users. In this thesis the focus is not on these restrictions, but it does affect the presentation of

oral history content online.

4.5 Summary

The presentation of oral history contains different issues. In this chapter the used project

examples are investigated and compared with each other. The main issues are the context

presentation which is linked to user groups and the findability of the websites and specific

content. The context presentation for the general public should be very extensive, because oral

history content is subjective and it is necessary that users understand this subjectivity of the

content and they should be able to contextualise this content. Therefore, websites should

provide secondary sources to enable the contextualisation. This is also necessary for online oral

history websites with researchers as main user group; because websites are online accessible

non expert users can access these websites as well.

The presentation has several restrictions such as technology, privacy and copyrights. The

implementation of the used technologies faces some difficulties. The alignment of text and

audio was in some interviews difficult, because the quality of the audio was not good enough.

The interviewees sometimes were hard to understand (poor articulation and volume) and in

some cases the interviewees did not speak Dutch, but another language. In the latter case a

translation was used for alignment, but for non expert users the interview itself was no use

without subtitles and the description would have been sufficient enough.

41

The findability of the websites are sometimes very poor, expert users are probably able to find

them, but when institutions have an educational objective it is questionable whether these

websites are actually used for educational purpose. The findability is linked to the use of

metadata and the lessons learned of Verteld Verleden show that this is a problem. There is no

standardisation and this is shown in the results of the findability of the websites. A notification

here is that some websites have a very specific subject (e.g. Willem Frederik Hermans) and are

more likely to be found, but websites with a broad subject (e.g. Levende Herinneringen) are not

found at all by web search engines.

The findability and contextualisation also depends on the privacy and copyright restrictions. If

interviewees do not give permission for a public view than the findability decreases and very

strict copyrights a problematic for providing context to the oral history material. These

problems are a continuous issue in discussions about online access of collections. In this chapter

only the websites are investigated, but institutes also present themselves in other ways on the

web. In the next chapter a few other forms of presentation on the internet are investigated.

42

5 Video content on YouTube

In the previous chapter the websites of the projects examples were investigated. The

presentations of oral history varies and the institutes faced with several issues. The most

important issues are findability (linking and metadata problems) and technology (speech

recognition). Other issues include privacy and copyrights. In this chapter video content on

YouTube (www.YouTube.com) is investigated, because institutes can use this form to present

their content.

The presentation of oral history content on YouTube differs from a website, because the focus is

on audiovisual content. YouTube attracts users who are searching for audiovisual content

whether that is for leisure or profession. The choice for the investigated channels is based on the

links to channels on the project example websites or websites of the institutions. Some

institutions have opened channels to broadcast videos they have made or that are a part of their

collection.

The videos are not exclusively oral history videos, but the table contains all videos the institute

broadcasts. The Amsterdam Museum is an exception and their oral history project

‘Buurtwinkels’ is separately shown. The tables show when the channel was opened, what the

last action was and how many subscriptions, videos and views there were.

Name channel Opened

on date

Last action

on date

# Subscriptions

(on 07-08-12)

# Videos

(on 07-08-12)

# Views

(on 07-08-12)

Aletta, instituut voor

vrouwengeschiedenis

17-06-2009 16-07-2012 15 121 28,919

Verteld Verleden 02-11-2010 22-11-2010 1 1 21

Brandgrens channel 16-04-2010 17-11-2011 33 8 90,351

NIODFilm 11-06-2010 25-06-2012 50 30 36,498

KNAW 01-07-2011 22-06-2012 11 32 6,035

Beeld en Geluid: meer dan 60 jaar

TV!

30-01-2007 25-07-2012 3,787 1,546 5,719,879

Video’s van het Veteraneninstituut 07-09-2011 03-07-2012 3 11 3,644

Geschiendenis24 13-04-2007 14-06-2012 1,533 259 1,558,294

Amsterdam Museum 08-09-2009 07-08-2012 55 114 56,153

Buurtwinkels 12-01-2010 13-10-2011 - 36 10,654

Kanaal van joodsmuseum 23-10-2007 17-07-2012 51 70 79,742

Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam 27-12-2007 25-06-2012 629 35 151,531

EYE Film Institute Netherlands 03-03-2010 03-08-2012 167 441 304,085

Rijksmuseum 28-01-2007 18-07-2012 509 65 304,510

Nationaal Archief 16-12-2008 01-05-2012 30 16 5,963

Official Anne Frank Channel 27-02-2006 11-06-2012 8,561 32 4,690,608

Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie 21-10-2009 21-06-2012 26 27 11,706

Table 5.1 YouTube channels

43

Name channel Days open

(on 07-08-12)

# Views

(on 07-08-12)

Average view

per day

# Videos

(on 07-08-12)

Average

view per

video

Beeld en Geluid: meer dan 60 jaar TV! 1,986 5,719,879 2879 1,546 3,700

Official Anne Frank Channel 2,320 4,690,608 2022 32 146,582

Geschiendenis24 1,914 1,558,294 814 259 6,017

EYE Film Institute Netherlands 874 304,085 348 441 690

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam 1,989 304,510 153 65 4,685

Brandgrens channel 831 90,351 109 8 11,294

Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam 1,660 151,531 91 35 4,329

Amsterdam Museum 1,049 56,153 54 114 493

NIODFilm 776 36,498 47 30 1,217

Kanaal van joodsmuseum 1,724 79,742 46 70 1,139

Aletta, instituut voor

vrouwengeschiedenis

1,130 28,919 26 121 239

KNAW# 396 6,035 15 32 189

Buurtwinkels 925 10,654 12 36 296

Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie 1,006 11,706 12 27 434

Video’s van het Veteraneninstituut 330 3,644 11 11 331

Nationaal Archief 1,311 5,963 5 16 373

Verteld Verleden 635 21 0 1 21

Table 5.2 Average views

The channels are relatively new, the oldest channel, Official Anne Frank Channel, exists 2,320

days (more than six years) and the youngest, Video’s van het Veteraneninstituut, exists 330

days. Table 5.2 shows the average views per day and the average views per video. This table is

sorted on the amount of total views. Three of the five channels with the most views also have

the largest collection on the channel, but the Official Anne Frank Channel has a very small

collection compared to the Beeld en Geluid: meer dan 60 jaar TV! collection. An explanation

for this can be that Anne Frank is well known and an often used query on YouTube or a web

search engine.

What do these tables show on the use of audiovisual content? The views are not specifically

defined and a view of a video therefore ranges from within one second to the complete view of

the video. However, it does show that the video’s are found whether the duration of the view is

long or short and besides it is quite simple to create a channel11 on YouTube. The views of the

interviews on the websites of the project examples are not shown, but it would be interesting to

compare the views of the YouTube video’s with the views of the interviews.

11 For creating a YouTube channel you need an account. Further information:

<http://support.google.com/YouTube/bin/static.py?hl=nl&topic=1735220&guide=1734705&page=guide.cs>

http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/static.py?hl=nl&topic=1735220&guide=1734705&page=guide.cs

44

6 Conclusion

The use and reuse of oral history is the subject of this thesis. The use of oral history consists of

theories about oral history and, more interesting for this thesis, the methodology of oral history.

When oral history is used as method than it can be understood as package of the original

interview, the recorded interview, the written transcript and the interpretation of the interview

by the interviewer. In addition, oral history is subjective, because it relies on the memory of a

witness and therefore the interviewer has to be aware of this peculiarity.

The reuse of oral history depends on the access to the recorded interview and to the

interpretation. Furthermore it is necessary to contextualize oral history. Without context it is

almost impossible for users to understand the interviews. For this, privacy and copyrights are

also important elements, because when these two aspects are very restricted, little context can

be made accessible.

In this thesis the project Verteld Verleden is used as case study, because different cultural

heritage institutes and archives provided their collections in order to optimise the access to oral

history collections. The project ended this year and there are several lessons learned. The most

important lessons are that uniform metadata schemes and formats are important and that further

research on use is necessary. The presentation of the oral history content was not investigated,

but this also needs further research.

This thesis analysed the findability of the websites by web search engines using known-item

search, because when the websites are not found, they will not be used. Some websites were

found within the top ten results, but it depends on the used keywords. Others were not found at

all, because the subject of the website was too broad and, more likely, the poor linking of the

website.

The findability of the interviews were also analysed. For this a distinction is made between the

whole interview and fragments of the interview. The fragment search on the websites showed

generally good results, but the interview searches with the web search engine Google showed

varying success. The interviews of two websites were found, but the others were not. This is

probably due to the metadata and linking.

In the last chapter, an additional initiative of the project examples was investigated: YouTube

channels. These channels provide more data on the use of the video’s. It is an indication of use,

because only views are investigated, but it shows that the video’s are found.

What can be concluded on all this? First, the presentation of oral history on the web can be very

interesting, but institutes need to think about providing metadata. Without good metadata,

45

collections will not be found. Second, technologies on speech recognition can be useful for

further research on the findability of oral history. Collections need linking, because for most (if

not all) users a search on internet begin with Google. Third, the interfaces of the websites needs

some reconsideration. It has to be clear for a user with which content (s)he is dealing with.

Since oral history is a subjective source, context is essential. The project examples have

different user groups, but when the collection is publicly accessible on the web context is

needed for a good reuse of the content.

46

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Verteld Verleden. <http://www.verteldverleden.org> 6 Augustus 2012.

48

Appendix I List of institutions, organisations and projects

DANS Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) encourages researchers to archive and

reuse data ina sustained manner. This happens through EASY (an online archivingsystem) and

NARCIS.nl (access to scientific information). DANS’ mission supports the idea that data should

be published open (Open Data) and protected when necessary. In order to access scientific

information in the future DANS developed Data Seal of Approval

(<http://www.datasealofapproval.org>). DANS is an institute of the Royal Netherlands

Academy of Arts and Sciences(KNAW) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific

Research (NWO). (DANS. ‘Over DANS’. <http://www.dans.knaw.nl/content/over-dans> 02-07-

2012)

Erfgoed van de Oorlog (War Heritage) was a once-only and temporary impulse to preserve

and to stimulate use of important content from and about the Second World War. The

government aims to enable the continuous reflection on the period ’40-’45 en the consequences

experienced afterwards with the most precious heritage content. Therefore it is important to

preserve unique stories and material from this period in time and is publicly accessible than

people can create their own perception on the Second World War. (Erfgoed van de Oorlog

<http://www.tweedewereldoorlog.nl/bronnen/erfgoed-van-de-oorlog/> 08-08-2012)

Gemeentearchief Rotterdam (The Municipal Archive of Rotterdam) is the public memory of

Rotterdam and several surrounding municipalities. The extremely rich collection includes

hundreds of thousands of prints, photographs, films, maps, sound recordings and more than 18

km paper records. As more information is stored only in digital form, we are one of the first

archives in the Netherlands to build a so called E-depot. (Gemeente Archief Rotterdam

<http://www.gemeentearchief.rotterdam.nl/en/about-us> 08-08-2012)

Noterik is a SME company, based in Amsterdam the Netherlands, which provides specialized

media asset management and publishing software services in the field of WebTV. We are

engaged in R&D and commercial WebTV services in the area of cultural heritage, e-learning,

publishing, broadcasting and customized media workflow.

Our WebTV software is used for managing and publishing large audiovisual archives

which are used for example by the BBC, INA, Sound and Vision, EBU and many other

European broadcasters and archive institutes. Corporate publishers such as Kluwer and leading

training institute such as Schouten en Nelissen use our WebTV services to stream line video

publishing on their website and e-learning platforms. One of the world largest maritime

http://www.datasealofapproval.org/








http://www.knaw.nl/smartsite.dws?id=25792&lang=ENG















http://www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/SPPD_5R2QE7_Eng











http://www.dans.knaw.nl/content/over-dans
















http://www.tweedewereldoorlog.nl/bronnen/erfgoed-van-de-oorlog/

http://www.gemeentearchief.rotterdam.nl/en/about-us

49

laboratory institutes, Marin, uses our software to streamline media workflow, transcoding and

publishing of video recordings. (Noterik < http://www.noterik.nl/> 08-08-2012)

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) was founded in 1808 as an

advisory body to the Dutch Government – a role that it continues to play today. The Academy

derives its authority from the quality of its members, who represent the full spectrum of

scientific and scholarly endeavour and are selected on the basis of their achievements. It is also

responsible for seventeen internationally renowned institutes whose research and collections put

them in the vanguard of Dutch science and scholarship.

The mission of KNAW is as the forum, conscience, and voice of the arts and sciences in

the Netherlands, the Academy promotes quality in science and scholarship and strives to ensure

that Dutch scholars and scientists contribute to cultural, social and economic progress. As a

research organisation, the Academy is responsible for a group of outstanding national research

institutes. It promotes innovation and knowledge valorisation within these institutes and

encourages them to cooperate with one another and with university research groups. (KNAW <

http://www.knaw.nl/Pages/DEF/26/105.bGFuZz1FTkc.html> 08-08-2012)

Stichting Willem Frederik Hermans instituut aims to be a centre for the research on the

literary legacy of Willem Frederik Hermans, comparable with international institutions on this

subject. The main objective of the institute is to spread the knowledge on the oeuvre and the

person Willem Frederik Hermans.

The Meertens Institute studies and documents the diversity of language and culture in the

Netherlands with everyday life as a central focus. The research involves mapping cultural and

social identity and their interdependence. Both geographical and social variation are

investigated in language research. The primary goal of the institute is to serve scientific

research, but since there is an increasing interest in language diversity the institute aims to

support the social and political debates as well. (Meertens Instituut.

<http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/cms/nl/meertens-instituut-othermenu-160> 03-07-2012)

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision is a cultural-historic organisation that

collects, preserves and gives access to audiovisual heritage. The selection is made from a

(cultural-)historic point of view of national concern. The users are a broad group of media-

professionals, education and science as well as the general public. The institute develops and

disseminates knowledge on audiovisual archiving, digitisation and media history.(Beeld en

Geluid. ‘Over Beeld en Geluid’ <http://beeldengeluid.nl/over-beeld-en-geluid> 03-07-2012)

‘Sound and Vision’ (‘Beeld en Geluid’) has one of the largest audiovisual archives in

Europe and it manages over 70% of the Dutch audiovisual heritage. The mission of the institute

http://www.noterik.nl/

http://www.knaw.nl/Pages/DEF/26/105.bGFuZz1FTkc.html

http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/cms/nl/meertens-instituut-othermenu-160




















http://beeldengeluid.nl/over-beeld-en-geluid













50

is to be the best audiovisual archive in the digital domain and therefore ‘Sound and Vision’

selected five strategic priorities:

1. Enlarging value of audiovisual heritage by giving meaning and context to its collections

as well as connecting the collections

2. Investing in interactive relations with users to reach as many users as possible

3. Ensuring to reflect the Dutch history correctly by collecting audiovisual and music

culture of the past, present and the future

4. Digitising the storage of audiovisual content and keeping it sustainable accessible.

Content contains manually added metadata and automatically generated descriptions

5. ‘‘Sound and Vision’ has an active role in sustainable access of audiovisual heritage and

becomes a central node within the national infrastructure of digital heritage. (Beeld en

Geluid. ‘Missie en beleid’. < http://beeldengeluid.nl/missie-en-beleid> 03-07-2012)

University of Twente / Human Media Interaction (HMI) HMI is part of the department of

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Twente. The

main focus of their research is the interaction between humans and computers. (HMI/Human

Media Interaction. <http://hmi.ewi.utwente.nl/> 03-07-2012)

http://beeldengeluid.nl/missie-en-beleid











http://hmi.ewi.utwente.nl/











51

Appendix II Short report on interview with Evelien Rijsbosch, senior information

specialist and project manager Aletta E-Quality.

Aletta collects and creates oral history content. When oral history is collected, the received

collection is digitized and reproduced on DVD’s. The interviews then will be transcribed and

further description and metadata will be attached.

The digitised content is also delivered to DANS, because they have a repository for streaming

video and DANS collects raw data for research purpose. Cultural heritage institutions are not

obliged to do so, but Aletta choose to do so for using the repository and to share research

material.

Aletta is developing an own database for the descriptions and metadata of the interviews. Their

Interview archive is a pilot of making oral history accessible. In this pilot version only a view

interviews are available the goal is to complete the database with all interviews from the Aletta

collection.

When presenting oral history, they believe that all available context should be collected. This

contains also information on the interviewer, such as curriculum vitae, a plan in which the

interviewer explains what the project is about and why there is chosen for the particular

interviewee. Furthermore, Aletta also collects the data of the orientation interviews prior to the

actual interview and information on the peculiarities during the interview. Evelien Rijsbosch

made clear that is important to understand the conditions in which the interview was taken and

the relationship between interviewer and interviewee. Therefore, also the trajectory afterwards

is important to collect. Rijsbosch points out that approximately one third of the budget on an

oral history project is spend on the interviews and the other part is needed for the work before

and after the interview is taken.

Aletta collects much information to provide a good context, but they have not decided yet how

to present this to the user. The first step is creating a database for all the descriptions and

metadata on the oral history collections. When a user types a query in the database, the list of

results will be comparable to the other databases that are available, for example the archive

database. On the website of Aletta federated search in the different database of Aletta is

possible, except the interviews are not a part of the search, but when the database is finished this

will add to the search option on their website.

The use of the pilot interview archive has not been measured yet, but Rijsbosch receives

question on the oral history content. For example, students of the Free University Amsterdam

had questions how to use oral history for their academic research project. In addition, there is

hardly research on the use of oral history.

52

The new database of Aletta contains about a hundred descriptions of collections and interviews

with metadata. The format used for the metadata is Dublin Core DC), because this standard

enables harvesting elsewhere when this is necessary. The Verteld Verleden portal also uses DC

as standard and the databases of the participated partners are compatible for a federated search

through the collections of the institutes. The description of the collections in the database

consist information on collection such as the amount of interviews and the formats of the

interview. When the collection is digitised, then the interviews are separately described.

Interview descriptions contains a biography of the interviewee and a summary in which as many

as possible keywords are used in order to make it more findable for users, because Aletta uses a

thesaurus as well as full text search. Furthermore the description of the interview contains the

theme of the interview, language, date of the interview, which period the interviewee speaks

about and of which collection the interview is part of.

Another question is the creation of an oral history collection. For most cultural heritage

institutions this is new, because they are used to collect oral history. The portal Verteld Verleden

wants to provide information, knowledge and best practice on the creation of oral history

collections.

How can users give feedback on the use of oral history content of Aletta? They are thinking on

tools for users to give feedback, but they are testing the use of their websites and specific parts

on a regular base. For example, search queries in the databases and the use of specific subjects.

The user can find short reports of the results of the questionnaires and testing on the Aletta

website. Whether a part of the website or a database is well used depends on the resources that

where spend to develop that specific part. In any case, Aletta improves the website and

databases based on the usability testing when possible.

The website is one part of the online presentation of Aletta; they also represent themselves on

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and a blog. The use of social media is an additional layer for the

presentation and can be used for experiments and to reach a younger audience. At the same time

Aletta wants to ensure their position as a reliable research partner. On YouTube Aletta opened a

channel on which trailers are posted for promoting the collection as well as videos that were

specially made for presentation on YouTube.

Verteld Verleden is a platform for oral history to distribute knowledge and for federated search

through national oral history collections. The website: verteldverleden.devel.noterik.com The

results of a search on this portal shows fragments found in the collections of the partner

institutes. The presentation of information about the fragment depends on how well interviews

are described. Another aspect is privacy of the interviewees: can the interview be accessed

online? DANS offers two options: free accessible or restricted access.

53

The speech recognition technology is interesting for making collections accessible, because it

offers opportunities for automatically generated metadata and for restricted accessible

interviews when only fragments of the interviews are not for public view. This means that a tool

can be created to block those restricted parts in order to show the interview without those

restricted fragments. When this is possible, more interviews can be presented for public view.

The innovative project Verteld Verleden needs a follow up, especially for research on use and

reuse and findabililty on the web.

54

Appendix III Sreenshots web search Table 4.6 Interview fragments search

Let me tell you a story... - Use and reuse of oral history_Marloes Kueter (2012)

Documents

Transcript of Let me tell you a story... - Use and reuse of oral history_Marloes Kueter (2012)