Unlocking our Sound Heritage: IIIF AV at the British Library
Andy Irving
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www.bl.uk
Aims of Unlocking Our Sound Heritage
1. Transform access to and preserve the UK’s most vulnerable and at-risk audio heritage
2. Raise awareness of the importance and value of the nation’s sound heritage
3. Create sustainable centres of excellence in digital audio preservation around the UK
4. Involve new audiences in engaging with their audio heritage in innovative ways
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Hub Partners
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High level numbers
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Digitisation | 160,000 items and c.470,000 recordings |
Discoverability | c.470,000 catalogue records |
Access | 100,000 recordings online with the aim of making 40% downloadable |
| Onsite access to 346,000 to 460,000 recordings at the BL and 27,000 to 460,000 at the hubs collectively |
Five Year Timetable
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Year one 2017/18 | • Started on 1st July 2017 • Recruitment and setting up at the British Library |
Year two 2018/19 | • Hub funding starts. • Recruit hub staff, set up studios & train hub teams |
Year three 2019/20 | • New web space ready for public launch in October 2019 |
Year four 2020/21 | • Hub funding ends • Celebrate the launch of the national network • Series of conferences on using audio archives |
Year five 2021/22 | • Pop up archive touring • By the end of the project, approx. 470,000 recordings will have been preserved & at least 100,000 available online |
Budget
The total project budget is £19 million
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Highlights so far
• A fawn-breasted bowerbird in Papua New Guinea mimicking the sound of construction works
• Kylie Minogue’s first UK concert performance at the Hammersmith Palais, London in the late 1980s
• David Bowie press conference which ends with him giving a solo performance of 'Space Oddity'
• 1979 interview with Frank Zappa, who shares his disappointment over a bad peach melba
• A 1996 Cambridge Union debate involving Theresa May and Alan Titchmarsh
• Northern Sotho songs accompanied by a dipila recorded in South Afr
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Real Timetable
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2014/15 | • Planning & data modelling |
2015/16 | • Start engaging with IIIF community around AV |
2016/17 | • Begin digitisation at BL • Start of Mellon grant to help progress IIIF AV |
2017/18 | • Universal Viewer AV development • Start publishing manifests |
2018/19 | • Launch new sounds.bl.uk website |
Mass Digitisation
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Manifest
Canvas
Range
Challenges
In no particular order…
G a p less Playbac k
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https://www.pretentiousname.com/mp3players/index_new.html
User Experience
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How useful is a scrub bar in an Oral History recording over 100 hours long?
User Experience
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How best to indicate where we are in the overall duration?
Download
Aim is to offer ~40% of recordings online for download
Not a 1:1 mapping between access copy and recording
So we can’t just let them download the access mp4
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Redaction
Oral History (in particular)
Durations on a file that the public can’t hear (but staff can)
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[REDACTED]
Redaction - waveforms
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Photo credits :
(follow my amazing colleagues on twitter):
@KatieTavini
@Sound_Archivist
@CherylTipp
Project links:
https://www.bl.uk/projects/save-our-sounds
@BLSoundHeritage
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And thank you
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