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The Hockey Museum receives funding to enhance the digital accessibility of its oral history archive
January 23, 2025
Howard Davies courtesy of Mike Smith 01

The Hockey Museum (THM) is delighted to announce the award of funding received for a new project to develop its oral history archive. The project will increase the online accessibility and discoverability of our existing archive of diverse oral history interviews. These are collectively named in memory of journalist and photographer Peter Savage.

What is the project?

Oral history is the collection and study of audio or video recordings of interviews with people who have personal knowledge of past events. In THM’s case, our programme of oral interviewing captures the lived experiences of hockey’s stars and innovators in their own words. Oral history can be a powerful reminiscence tool that also preserves these individuals’ lives in hockey for posterity.

The audio and video files are then indexed using a pioneering oral history software called OHMS – the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer, to use its full title. Within OHMS, we break down each interview into thematic chapters with keywords and partial transcripts. These are then presented for THM’s online audiences on our website. This indexing process enhances each interview’s accessibility. The audio becomes word searchable, allowing the user to either listen to the whole interview or search for themes or events that they are particularly interested in.

We have long held ambitions to go beyond this current functionality to further enhance the user experience. In doing so, we will improve the online discoverability and accessibility of our oral history interviews, individually and collectively. No such website plug-in* exists to deliver the exact features we envisage, so this project seeks to deliver on these ambitions by commissioning our own. Space Galleon Digital Media are working in partnership with mr.creative studio to develop our plug-in. It will:

  • situate all oral history interviews on a single webpage with additional information and imagery visible to the user to better contextualise each interview: interview date, interviewee biography, images and captions. This will end unnecessary navigation between webpages, a known digital access barrier, and enhance the user experience.
  • enable ‘global’ search and results for all interviews, replacing the default OHMS functionality wherein each interview must be searched individually. Global search will make it easier for the user to identify thematic content across interviews.
  • automate much of the back-end processing required to put a newly indexed oral history interview, complete with its enhanced metadata, live on the website.

How is the project funded?

THM is grateful to the Chapman Charitable Trust (CCT) for its generosity in the sum of £2,000. A family Trust settled by Mrs Marjorie Chapman, the CCT supports efforts to increase accessibility in the arts.

This figure is generously enhanced by the David Prosser Media Fund, a restricted fund of annual donations to the Museum made in memory of the former Wales and Great Britain (GB) captain David Prosser by his GB teammates from the 1966 Australia tour. David’s career away from hockey was the inspiration behind this support. It facilitates a small but reliable income that THM uses to progress film and digital media projects.

The residual project cost has been met by donations from the Friends of The Hockey Museum, whose collective support THM could not do without.

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THM Curator Shane Smith said:

“The Hockey Museum is very grateful to the trustees of Chapman Charitable Trust for recognising the cultural value of this project. Also, to the regular donors to the David Prosser Media Fund for their generous, ongoing annual support. The collective support for this project enables THM to continue to innovate and push the boundaries of digital accessibility.

 

“We are striving to build a website plug-in with superior functionality to existing oral history software. THM has long punched above the weight of its small staff team. This is in no small part down to the enthusiasm and skills of our volunteer cohort and the generosity of our supporters. The realisation of this digital project, hot on the heels of last year’s website launch, is yet another great example.”

* A plug-in is a software extension component that adds new features to an application.

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