How OHD Works

OHD uses a CSV-driven approach to manage your collection. Rather than creating individual web pages for each interview, you’ll manage all your interviews through spreadsheet/CSVs for your metadata and transcripts and then let the system automatically generate the web presentation.

Project Structure Overview

your-repository/
├── _data/
│   ├── your-metadata.csv     # Your collection metadata file
│   ├── filters.csv           # Your coding vocabulary
│   ├── theme.yml             # Your site configuration (basic customizations)
│   └── transcripts/          # Folder for transcript CSVs
│       └── transcript1.csv   # Sample transcript 1
│       └── transcript2.csv   # Sample transcript 2
├── _config.yml               # Project configuration (title, metadata, etc.)
└── objects/                  # Folder for interview images

The Complete Workflow

1. Setup Your Environment

  • Create a copy of the OHD GitHub Repository
  • Configure your project settings

2. Prepare Your Content

  • Transform interview transcripts into structured CSV files –> see examples
  • Add metadata through a spreadsheet (based on CollectionBuilder-CSV)
    • Connect transcripts with audio/video sources via Metadata (optional)
  • Code Your Transcripts (Optional)
    • Create a controlled vocabulary for coding
    • Apply thematic codes to your transcript content

3. Customize Your Site

  • Configure theme settings and appearance
  • Set up visualization options and coding structure

4. Publish and Share

  • Publish your collection using GitHub Pages or via other deployment items
  • Share your new site!

The entire process is designed to be flexible, allowing you to focus on the content and analysis rather than web development. Whether you’re working with a single interview or a large collection, OHD scales to meet your needs.

At the end of the process, you’ll have a professional-quality website that publishes your transcripts with powerful search, browse, and visualization features to promote your research and engage the public.

About Oral History as Data

Oral History as Data was first built in 2018, coming out of work at the University of Idaho Library’s Center for Digital Inquiry and Learning (CD?L). The framework served as the foundation for several digital humanities projects, including Voices of Gay Rodeo, Idaho Queered, and CTRL+Shift.

Devin Becker (@dcnb) is the primary developer for this project.

The project is closely related to the CollectionBuilder project, and the current iteration was built on top of a CollectionBuilder-CSV template.

Quick Start