=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2119/paper2
|storemode=property
|title=Curation and Dissemination of Lifestory Interviews for the Humanities
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2119/paper2.pdf
|volume=Vol-2119
|authors=Almut Leh,Doris Tausendfreund
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/bd/LehT17
}}
==Curation and Dissemination of Lifestory Interviews for the Humanities==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2119/paper2.pdf
Curation and Dissemination of Lifestory Interviews for the Humanities
Almut Leh and Doris Tausendfreund
FernUniversität in Hagen / Freie Universität Berlin
Feithstr. 152,58097 Hagen / Ihnestr. 24, D 14195 Berlin
E-mail: almut.leh@fernuniversität-hagen.de, doris.tausendfreund@cedis.fu-berlin.de
Abstract
Based on the special nature of audio and video interviews with eyewitnesses of National Socialism and survivors of the Holocaust, we
would like to demonstrate current approaches to make audio visual testimonies accessible online by introducing the Online- Archive
“Forced Labor 1939-1945. Memory and History”.
Conducted in 27 countries in the native languages of the witnesses, the interview collection contains 583 comprehensive life story
interviews (192 video and 391 audio interviews) with concentration camp survivors, prisoners of war, and “civilian” forced labourers.
Content based indexing, full text search and an interactive map application showing sites of biographical relevance to the interviewees
(place of birth, deportation, camps, companies and prisons, places of residence after 1945) allow for a targeted search that leads
directly to individual passages of the interviews. An annotation feature allows users to benefit from the specific knowledge of other
users to add to the understanding of the interviews. We will discuss considerations on designing an online platform to avoid the use of
the interviews as a mere quotations quarry and instead supporting a comprehensive understanding of the whole testimony in its
narrative structure and its biographical meaning. The paper demonstrates a powerful tool which enables academics in the fields of
history, political and social sciences as well as cultural studies to work effectively with testimonies to answer their specific research
questions. Finally, we will describe perspectives for future developments such as a Meta Online Archive.
Keywords: Online Archives, Oral History, Audio-visual Data, Interviews, Biographical Data
ciplines they all emphasize the subjectivity and the rela-
1. Introduction tionship of the individual to society. In other words: they
The following article deals with developments and per- all focus on biographical processes and subjective per-
spectives of online archiving and the retrieval of oral sonal information.
history interviews. The first chapter presents oral history It is significant that this field of research initially met with
as a special method for research into contemporary histo- great resistance in established historiography. But outside
ry, which has led to an extensive collection of interviews the universities, oral history enjoyed great popularity. In
with witnesses from various eras, many of them survivors the course of the social movements of the 1980s, the
of Nazi persecution. Due to the narrative form of the so-called history movement emerged, which was organ-
interviews and the biographical dimension of the narra- ised in local history workshops and preferably used the
tive, these sources are of particular value for secondary method of interviewing contemporary witnesses.
analyses. At the same time, the very personal data re- Equipped with cassette recorders, which had just con-
quires a high degree of sensitivity when archiving and quered the market in the 1970s, lay people interested in
passing them on to third parties, especially when the history set out to let the so-called “little people” have their
archive makes the interviews available online. The second say and thus catch up on their view of history. The slogan
part discusses the special requirements for archiving such of this period was “history from below” or also the history
sources in general, before the third part presents the online of “little people”. This was underpinned by a democratic
archive “Forced Labor 1939-1945. Memory and History” impulse, namely to bring into history those who had
as a best-practice example of the state of the art in online always been ignored by the ruling historiography, which
archiving of oral history interviews. The features of the had the great politics made by great men in mind.
online archive are presented in the context of legal and In Germany, this research was primarily focused on the
technical challenges. The article concludes with perspec- period of National Socialism and the Second World War,
tives and potentials in the area of online archiving of especially in the 1980s. However, interview-based re-
biographical interviews such as a meta-search engine search has also come to include many other topics and
across several databases and an open online archive. historical periods, and as a result, the past forty years have
seen a multitude of witnesses to a wide range of historical
2. A brief introduction: What is oral events interviewed by researchers (Apel & Andresen,
history? 2015).
Although not in the university mainstream, oral history
Research based on interviews with witnesses to historical
gained reputation in scientific research and appeared with
events has a long tradition in the social sciences and
the claim to offer not only a special method in questioning
humanities. However, in Germany, as in various other
contemporary witnesses, but also a new approach to the
Western European countries, it was in the 1970s and
past that takes into account subjective experience, the
1980s that research based on life-story interviews really
processing of history and the influence of historical ex-
boomed in almost all areas of the humanities.
perience on future history. In connection with the estab-
For all the differences among the various academic dis-
lishment of oral history in science, methodological and
8
analytical reflections on physical, psychological and 3. Archiving oral history interviews
social aspects of memory, the influence of the interviewer Whereas the early oral history research projects preserved
and the representativeness of interview-based historical their interviews largely for reasons of thoroughness, it
research were conducted (e.g. Niethammer, 1985; Por- soon became clear that these sources could be of value
telli, 1992; Thompson, 1978, Thompson & Bornat, 2017). beyond the initial project and, as such, needed to be
Over the years, professionalization can be discerned in the safeguarded and made accessible for future research. This
attitude to oral history interviews. The historical profes- change in attitude, which became evident in the late
sion has largely abandoned its initial reservations, and 1980s, was also motivated by the appreciation of the time
today it is hard to imagine the presentation of historical and effort required to gather such material and of the
information in exhibitions, documentations and films materials’ complexity, the potential of which can hardly
without the use of witness accounts to the relevant events. be exhausted by a single analysis.
The process of professionalization relates to the devel- In addition, it is basically sensible and good scholarly
opment of a specific methodological approach (Perks & practice to publish empirical research data, to document
Thomson, 2006; Ritchie, 2011; Ritchie 2015). This the research process and allow results to be reviewed, if
method goes back to the sociologist Fritz Schütze (1976) not reproduced. Relevant funding organisations such as
and is characterized by the fact that rather than structuring the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft have, since several
the interview around questions, the interviewer encour- years, been stating according guidelines and policies as
ages the interviewee to freely narrate his or her life story. mandatory funding criteria. 1 As a matter of fact, many
The outcome is qualified as a narrative life-story inter- lifestory interviews are curated and maintained by the
view. This approach is based on the assumption that the institutions that originally conducted them. On the other
narrative will accord with the sequence of past events and hand, in Germany, archives specialized in oral history
that narratives hence are the appropriate linguistic form interviews are rather rare,2 and a number of those that do
for the recollection of past realities. The principles of exist are limited to very specific research topics.3 On the
narration are regarded as creating a framework in which part of the researchers, this makes it more difficult to
the narrator relates events as they happened. search for suitable sources and to submit self-guided
The interview should ideally proceed in three phases. In interviews to the archives that are willing to host the
the first phase, the interviewee is asked to narrate his or recordings.
her life story in detail and according to his or her own
determination of what is relevant. During this phase, the 1
In 1998, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft publis-
interviewer intervenes as little as possible and motivates
hed the memorandum “Sicherung guter wissenschaftli-
the interviewee to continue the narrative solely through cher Praxis” (Safeguarding Good
attentive listening. At the conclusion of this free-wheeling Scientific Practice) with recommendations for the provi-
phase, the interviewer asks questions designed to clarify sion of research data for reanalyses, which were supple-
what he has heard. In a third phase, the interviewer can mented and updated in 2013 (Deutsche Forschungsge-
address themes and ask questions that are of interest to meinschaft, 2013).
2
him but have not been addressed yet. In all phases, the A comprehensive oral history archive is the Archiv
conduct of the interview should be oriented to eliciting the “Deutsches Gedächtnis” at the FernUniversität in Hagen
impromptu narration of events in which the narrator was (Leh 2015).
3
actively or passively involved. For example „Digitaler Gedächtnisspeicher: Menschen
From research on memory and recollection, we can as- im Bergbau“ (Digital memory storage. People in mining),
Bochum,
sume that narration, especially in the context of a life
http://isb.rub.de/sbr/drittmittelprojekte/gedaechtnisspeich
story, is particularly suited to activate recollective ca- er.html.de; „Sprechen trotz allem. Das Videoarchiv der
pacity. Furthermore, the narrative form of conducting Stiftung Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Euro-
interviews has the advantage of a degree of openness. The pas“ (Speak after all. The video archive of the Memorial
more space the interviewee is granted, the less the inter- to the Murdered Jews of Europe Foundation‘s video
view will be burdened by presuppositions on the part of archive), Berlin, www.sprechentrotzallem.de; “Archiv
the interviewer that may prejudice the result. der anderen Erinnerungen. Zeitzeug_innen-Interview-
It is easy to conceive of such an interview as representing projekt der Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld“ (Archive
a highly individual testimony in which the interviewee of other memories. Contemporary witness interview
has presented large parts of his life story and his world project of the Federal Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld,
view in a way that is often unguarded and sometimes interviewing lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals,
transgender, inter and queer people), Berlin,
contradictory. Moreover, the result is also one in which
http://mh-stiftung.de/en/zeitzeug_innen-interview-projek
the interviewer has played a part not only as an initiator t-der-bundestiftung-magnus-hirschfeld/; “Individuelle
but also as an interested and sympathetic listener. Given Erinnerung und gewerkschaftliche Identität” (Individual
this framework, it is also easy to appreciate that the ar- memory and trade union identity), Bonn/Düsseldorf,
chiving of such subjective, sophisticated sources presents http://www.zeitzeugen.fes.de/; “Museum für Hamburgi-
particular challenges. sche Geschichtchen” (Museum for Hamburg history),
Hamburg,
http://toepfer-stiftung.de/museum-fuer-hamburgische-ges
chichtchen/.
9
In fact, archiving oral history interviews is a great chal- users to do the often very time-consuming work in their
lenge, both technically and in terms of content. The most institution, which is run as a presence archive.
technically demanding aspect is the long-term preserva- In digital humanities, the provision of sustainable repos-
tion of audio and video recordings, which requires digiti- itories, standardized metadata, interoperable interfaces
zation of analog recordings. This is demanding because it and exchange formats has made considerable progress in
means dealing with both historical and current recording recent years, not least through major collaborative pro-
technologies and because decisions regarding formats and jects such as CLARIN or DARIAH, offering, amongst
storage media must take into account both current and other features, complex solutions for generic search
future technological developments. All this can quickly across multiple collections of heterogenous metadata
overtax archives that lack special expertise regarding formats. However, feature requirements regarding AV
audio and video material in general and interviews in media formats such as a graded access rights manage-
particular. In this regard the British and Austrian exam- ment, the automatised anonymisation of personal data in
ples are instructive: there sound archives manage oral AV data, or a transmedial search - such as, for example, a
history collections.4 geo-referenced place on an interactive map linking to a
The challenge in terms of content is based on the qualita- specific point of reference in a video -, do not exist as
tive nature of the interview. The open form and narrative default features in current repositories. These requests
structure make the interviews interesting for secondary hardly exist as out-of-the-box solutions, but require pro-
analyses. The interviews offer so much information and ject-specific adjustment and the respective development
aspects that they can be analysed beyond the first evalua- resources. While it is undeniable that modern and us-
tion to further questions in other research contexts and er-friendly forms of the provision of interview material
with new knowledge gain. Nevertheless, the content need to be developed, it is also true that the sensitive
indexing is demanding and not always satisfactory. nature of the documents and the personal rights of the
Making such interviews a usable source requires at least a interviewees must not be neglected. It is the responsibility
classification of the material according to predefined of the archives to protect the personality rights of the
thematic characteristics or keywords. Another form of interviewee and at the same time to meet the demands of
disclosure entails the transcription of interview material the archive users for up-to-date conditions of access..
so it can be subject to a full-text search. Unfortunately, The online archive “Forced Labor 1939-1945. Memory
both indexing and transcription are very time-consuming and History” is an example of an online archive dedicated
even with today’s technology. Due to the high costs of to these challenges. It is presented in the following sec-
proper indexing and long-term preservation, archiving tion.
oral history interviews involves a great deal of effort.
In addition, there is the uncertain legal basis for archiving 4. The online archive “Forced Labor
witness interviews. In order to ensure the interviewee’s 1939-1945. Memory and History”
personal rights, the access to oral history interviews has The “Forced Labor 1939-1945. Memory and History”
until now usually been confined to the proprieting ar- archive holds over 390 audio- and 190 video-interviews
chives. Here, archive users are required to sign an with people forced to labour for Nazi Germany. The
agreement that they will not make use of personal data interviews were conducted in 2005 and 2006 within the
and in the case of publication ensure that the interviewee framework of “Documentation of Life Story Interviews
and other featured persons are adequately anonymized. with Former Slave and Forced Laborers,” a project in-
As a result, it is difficult for users to locate appropriate volving 32 research institutions and project groups and
interview material, and actually using the material tends coordinated by the Institute for History and Biography at
to be time-consuming and bound to a particular physical the FernUniversität Hagen.i
location.
Nevertheless, for some years now, pertinent archives have
been facing a growing interest in oral history interviews
(Apel 2015). In parallel to the increased user interest,
however, relevant archives have also identified changing
expectations on the part of users. Accustomed to rapid
access to all types of information on the internet, users of
archives now expect at least the possibility of online
research in databases and preferably the online provision
of the sources themselves. The archives are, however,
hesitant about these questions and expect the archive
4
In Great Britain the “British Library Sound Archive” is
leading in the field of archiving oral history collections
https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/oral-history. In Aus-
tria several oral history collections are archived by the Figure 1: Geographical distribution of the subsets of the
“Österreichische Mediathek” (Austrian Media Center) at collection
the Technisches Museum Wien, https://www.mediathek.at.
10
The archive contains interviews with survivors of Nazi made of the audio recordings. The reference copies are
forced labour in 25 languages; interviews were conducted intended to provide a basis for generating other up-to-date
in 26 countries, above all in Central and Eastern Europe. formats for end-use in the future.
The interviewees were free to choose the interview lan- Access to the online archive is open to registered users
guage. Interviewees include former concentration camp only. Potential users must apply for registration and
inmates, prisoners of war and members of victimized provide not only personal details but also precise infor-
groups that are often “forgotten” such as Roma and vic- mation about their interest in the material. This infor-
tims of forced Germanization. mation is checked manually by the project team of the
The interviews in the “Forced Labor 1939-1945” archive Freie Universität Berlin for plausibility, and within two
are narrative life-story interviews and begin with an open days applicants either receive personal access data or are
question. They follow a structure that begins with the informed that their application has been declined. Users
stating the time, date, location and participants of the must also agree to abide by the comprehensive conditions
interview (in text form on an opening slide, and often of use.
verbally as well), followed by the narration of the wit- The issue of confidentiality for interviewees has been
ness’s life story, and concluding with the presentation of approached with great care. Access to the documents is
documents and artefacts. The interviews are unedited. controlled in a similar way to that used in traditional,
They have an average duration of 2.5 hours. physical archives that the user must visit in person. This
Each interview is accompanied by a short report by the indicates that the concerns repeatedly raised about confi-
interviewer (which is not made public), along with bio- dentiality in the context of digital or online archives can,
graphical questionnaires and a brief biography of the in fact, be adequately dealt with.
interviewed person. In this project, transcripts and trans- Metadata is assigned to each interview and enables a
lations of the interviews have been produced, and these quick search for biographical key data. It is desirable for
allow for the provision of particularly detailed research the future to make these metadata available in other
options and a user-friendly environment. directories as well (e.g. Europeana6). These data are not
The Center for Digital Systems of the Freie Universität found unconditionally in the interview itself, but they are
Berlin – in cooperation with the Foundation Remem- collected for each interview in the interview process.
brance, Responsibility and Future – created an online In the online archive the uncut interviews have been
archive from the analogue audio and video collection.5 processed by the CeDiS team in such a way as to make
The interview archive is available for education and possible a number of navigation and search tools for
research and embedded in a Web site which provides archive users. One popular, standard option is the com-
contextual information about the collection, the project, bination of biographical search criteria. For each inter-
oral history, forced labor, compensation of forced laborers view, the following information is recorded: persecuted
and activities for education, teaching and exhibits. The- group, labour deployment area (e.g. mining, private
matically related links are available as well as literature household, agriculture, etc.), internment conditions (e.g.
references. prison, concentration camp, private lodgings), interview
The original tapes have been archived for an unlimited language, (current) place of residence (country). The user
time by the Deutsches Historisches Museum, where they can select for certain categories to, for example, identify
are stored under optimal conditions (like film material, everyone who gave his/her interview in Polish and be-
cool and dry, in a constant climate. The standard for the longed to the group of “politically persecuted”. In this
storage of magnetic tapes was defined in ISO case, 32 interviews from the archive would be immedi-
18923:2000) However, it is still unclear whether transfer ately found. Such a search can be refined in various ways
to other digital formats will be possible in twenty or thirty to get more and more specific (and fewer) results. For
years without quality losses. High-quality (albeit lossy in example, the search above can be refined to include only
comparison to the original) digital reference copies in DV those who laboured in the field of “industry”: for which
Pal format has been made of the interviews. Copies of the 13 results can be found in the archive. This search possi-
video recordings were also transcoded for the internet bility identifies complete interviews (rather than particu-
originally into Flash and MPEG 4 end-user formats, but lar segments in the interviews).
technical development has meanwhile led to dropping the The “Forced Labor 1939-1945” archive also offers users
Flash format and re-encoding to X264 (using the mp4 the possibility of targeting concrete passages in the inter-
container) in three different resolutions optimizing for views. For this purpose interviews have been transcribed
different mobile end devices. MPEG 3 copies have been and translated into German,7 and divided into individual
5 6
The creation of the online archive was carried out by a Europeana is the European Commission’s digital plat-
project team supported by free lancers. The project was form for cultural heritage, www.europeana.eu/portal/de.
7
led by Prof. Apostolopoulos. Dr. Doris Tausendfreund This has been done manually by a large amount of
was responsible for the project management. The author freelancers. Their work was quality controlled by the
of further articles mentioned here, Dr. Cord Pagenstecher, Institute for East European Studies of the Freie Universi-
was also on the project team. Further project members can tät Berlin. Additionally, all names (companies, locations,
be found under the following link: camps and persons) were provided with aliases that were
http://www.zwangsarbeit-archiv.de/team/index.html. synchronized with each other.
11
segments, with each segment corresponding to a sentence. visible. They can also be used to locate more abstract
The text-based segments are linked with the video and connections, even if the familiar terminology does not
audio time codes with the result that a full-text search appear in the spoken text. For instance, an interviewee
shows the individual segments as well as the correspond- might speak vividly about the riots during the November
ing sequences in the video and audio files. The type of Pogrom without using this term or one of the other
linking has the additional function of allowing for the common synonyms for it (e.g. “Kristallnacht”). A full-text
synchronous presentation of image/sound and the ac- search would thus not locate this thematic segment.
companying text, which is shown in subtitles. Headings are a great help to users in such cases, as they
The full-text search, which is made possible by the tran- link familiar, technical terms to the segment in question.
scription and translation of the interviews, offers the The headings are located right next to the player and are
advantage of allowing every word to be searched and therefore easy to access.
found.
Figure 2: Full-text search results of the term Figure 4: Visualization of the camps where interviewees
“Buchenwald” were held
The disadvantage is that these words are not weighted. The registers include all geographical locations of rele-
For instance, a place name can refer to somewhere an vance to the interviewees’ biography, the names of com-
interviewee stayed for several years or to one of many panies connected to the labour years, sites of persecution
cities through which someone traveled en route to a camp; as well as any individual whose full name was mentioned
the latter result is unlikely to be interesting for the re- in the interview. The registers build the foundation for
searcher. additional functionalities of the archive, which are partly
still being developed. In general, it is important to note
that the archive is being constantly expanded and im-
proved upon. A first version went online in January 2009,
and a second version with additional functionality was
released in June 2010. More modifications are planned or
already in progress. In 2018, the archive will become
more responsive so that a convincing design and user
guidance on various mobile terminals will be possible.
This process reflects a compromise between making the
interviews available to research and education as soon as
possible and advancing interview processing or “disclo-
sure” and technical research capabilities. Thus, some of
the archive’s interviews do not (yet) offer the full variety
Figure 3: Display of the interview in the online archive of search functionalities described. Information regarding
the processing stage is displayed with the interview so
In order to counteract such irrelevant search results and to that a user can see which of the consecutive steps (proof-
provide archive users with tools in addition to the full-text reading, segmenting, translating, and register/heading
search, headings have been written and a register was set processing) the interview has been through.
up. The headings provide the user with a quick overview The register allows maps to be generated. These collec-
of the interview structure and the main points covered. tion maps display, for example, birth place, location of
Thus, for example, recurring topics become immediately deportation or forced labour, or the post-war residence of
12
all interviews. Users can select a particular location on the during project days and presentation examinations in
collection map and will be taken to a list of interviews that schools. The focus is on abridged videographed life
mention that location in the particular connection (as birth reports with tailored work proposals. Additional materials
place, for example). Similarly, in the future information such as documents, maps, pictures, songs, short biog-
from the register can be used to make and display indi- raphies, methodological tips, etc. help with editing and
vidualized maps for each interview; they would display contextualization. 8 The software is also supplemented
and designate (e.g. by colour code) the most relevant with a printed teacher handbook that includes in-depth
locations (birth place, internment location) of that inter- historical, contextual background to the interviews’ con-
viewee’s biography. tent. DVD and teacher handbooks are still being distrib-
To summarize, the archive offers a highly user-friendly uted by the German Federal Agency for Civic Education
interface and helpful research tools. The capacity to locate (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung).
thematically relevant segments, or particular names and Finally, learning materials for other countries were de-
terms within the interview has been made possible by an veloped. Together with teams in the Czech Republic,
immense input of time and personnel, which has pro- Russia and soon Poland, new content was generated that
duced, among other things, the complex indexing of the takes into account not only the respective language, but
content of every interview, including producing tran- also the culture of remembrance and the requirements of
scripts and translations as well as registers and headings. the schools. The learning application for the Czech Re-
The archive online platform also required complex pro- public can be found at the Internet address
graming, which includes an editing system, a documen- (www.nucenaprace.cz). The Russian version is provided
tation and indexing system, a search engine, and an in- under (https://obuchenie-na-osnove-intervyu.org) (Wein,
teractive user-interface with multimedia elements. Fur- 2018).
thermore, digitization and archiving also represent a Due to the special nature of the materials it holds and the
substantial challenge in terms of navigating the prevailing aids it provides, the Forced Labor 1939-1945 archive is of
technical parameters and financial constraints. Thus the particular interest for the field of historical-political
“Forced Labor 1939-1945” archive had to find a prag- education and research. For scholars, online access to
matic solution that guarantees the preservation of the interviews relevant to their research provides a real ad-
interviews without astronomical costs, this entailed a loss vantage that will lead to greater utilization of the inter-
in terms of quality compared with the original recordings. views. Whereas previously time-consuming and costly
The archive is designed for use in research and education. visits to archives were reserved for scholars involved in
The user interface features comprehensive search func- projects with adequate financing, online offerings now
tions that are particularly suited to researchers and teach- also enable students and pupils, as well as lay researchers,
ers at the university level. The archive is used by teachers to make use of interviews with witnesses to historical
and students from a diverse range of disciplines. Apart events. The increased visibility and use of their holdings
from the more obvious fields of history and cultural is also of benefit to the archives, since it enables them to
studies, the testimonies are being used, for example, in acquire greater significance and recognition, which could
seminars run by departments of sociology, political sci- in turn lead to more resources in terms of staff and fi-
ence, English philology, East European studies, Jewish nancing. Finally, for the interviewees, the improved
studies, film studies and educational science. Some sem- access to and increasing use of the material they have
inars focus completely on the interviews, while others use provided represents a recognition of their role as wit-
them as supplementary sources. nesses and a confirmation that their memories and expe-
The use of such testimonies in school contexts has proved riences will continue to be appreciated by future genera-
particularly effective to raise a general awareness of the tions.
existence of forced labour during the Second World War.
Since pupils respond very well to accounts by witnesses 5. Perspectives and potentials
to historical events and direct encounters with the few Today, there are numerous collections of oral history
surviving witnesses are seldom possible due to their interviews. Each collection follows its own guidelines
advanced age. However, the use of these archives in their with regard to interview management, interview focus,
existing form without a didactic framework and contex- archiving, metadata, search features, standardized bio-
tualization is unsuited to the 13-18 year-old target group. graphical and bibliographical reference and, if necessary,
In particular, the vast number of interviews seems to indexing of interviews, storage and preservation of tapes,
confuse pupils and quickly overtaxes them. For this (standardized) data formats etc.
reason Educational materials based on the testimonies For researchers, these collections are very valuable, but
have been developed. A project team at Freie Universität there is no curated, complete catalogue of individual
Berlin has used the interviews to produce a multimedia collections. Such a directory would be a first step towards
application that allows for independent learning. The making the interviews entirely available to the academic
application was originally distributed on dvds, but is now world. It would be even more desirable to implement a
online at www.lernen-mit-interviews.de available. The
learning software supports independent and competen-
8
cy-oriented learning both in regular lessons as well as For a comprehensive presentation of the educational
materials see Pagenstecher, C., Wein, D., 2017.
13
meta-search that searches the directories of the different single disciplines, projects and smaller institutions de-
collections, implying both standardized metadata pending on restricted resources and budgets. Current
schemes and mapping tools/features, allowing for discussions and initiatives such as those on generic and/or
cross-searching a variety of given collections, combining discipline-specific national research data infrastructures
user-specific parameters. show the need of a sustainable commitment by large
Open standards such as the Resource Description institutions and/or structures. Discipline-specific infra-
Framework (RDF) would serve as a basis for semantic structural requirements, as they emerge through research
web solutions. These standards allow for a constant ex- fields such as oral history, can serve as a valuable basis for
tension of assignments that is not possible in the more designing respective solutions.
static metadata schemas. Links to ever new open data
sources are supported. In addition, data fields can be
mapped to each other without loss and thus guarantee
interoperability of data.
With the semantic processing of information from bio-
graphical interviews, these are also compatible with the
databases of larger initiatives for curating, storing and
archiving the digital cultural heritage, also aiming at the
differentiated use of large quantities of digital multimedia
by advanced technologies and concepts of the Semantic
Web and Web 2.0.
In addition to the search for metadata on various collec-
tions, the preservation and indexing of "neglected"
smaller collections appears to be necessary in the near
future. In order to preserve them and make them available
for research and educational purposes in the future, it
seems necessary to create digital copies. These should be
collected, indexed and made available to others. To this
end, it would make sense to create a central platform as an
infrastructural solution to which the individual owners of
the collection would upload and edit their audio and video
interviews with associated transcripts, biographies, im-
ages, etc. and make them accessible to the scientific
community by means of a differentiated user administra-
tion. The configurable sets of tools, some of which have
been tried and tested (the solutions of the “Forced Labor”
archive could serve as a model) and some of which are to
be newly developed, would support the researchers
working with the interviews through annotation and
analysis. Such a platform would have to be offered open
access for holders of interview collections and thus be
available for use free of charge. In this way, a possibility
of sustainability would also be created for the biograph-
ical data of smaller financially very poorly equipped
projects, which is not available at present.
Both proposals, the meta-search as well as the online
archive, would contribute to the long-term preservation
and visualisation of the large and small interview collec-
tions that have emerged over the past decades and thus
make them accessible to further research.
The increased use of the interview documents would also
be an opportunity to promote content indexing and tran-
scription through the participation of users, which is
difficult to achieve under current conditions. The ma-
chine-readable, standardized indexing of the interviews is
ultimately the most important prerequisite for keeping
them alive as historical sources and opening them up to
questions that future generations of researchers will
address to them.
Clearly, respective efforts are difficult to achieve by
14
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