Controversy, Code Names, and Cultural Memory: Building the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project Digital Collection

Authors

Cory K. Lampert, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow

Meeting name

ALA Annual Conference

Meeting location

Anaheim, CA

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

6-28-2008

Abstract

This poster highlights the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project (NTSOHP); a digitization collaboration dedicated to documenting, preserving, and disseminating the stories of persons affiliated with and impacted by forty years of U.S. Cold War nuclear weapons testing.

The project is a partnership between the UNLV University Libraries, the director of the NTSOHP, campus, and community partners to create an online, fully searchable, digital re-search collection from the collected oral history research. Project participants include scientists, miners, military officers, contractors and corporate executives. Also presented are the voices of native tribal leaders, peace activists and communities downwind of the test site. Working with controversial material, deciphering military code names, and negotiating government acronyms were all unique challenges to the project.

This poster also presents practical digital projects solutions (such as managing cross-campus communication, quality control for complex metadata creation, troubleshooting online document display, and tackling project marketing), with a focus on issues in converting oral history research for the online environment. Project at a Glance University Libraries partnered with UNLV College of Liberal Arts (History and Sociology) Over 175 participants; 335 hours of interviews (digital audio, transcribed text, images and related documents and video) Research design approved by UNLV’s Institutional Review Board and followed Evaluation Guide-lines of the Oral History Association Collection built in CONTENTdm digital collection management software Metadata created with controlled vocabulary and library standards Full-text indexing enabled for searching; transcripts provided in PDF format for output Multimedia delivered via streaming audio with custom embedded player Custom web interface to display metadata, audio player and PDF side by side.

Keywords

Archival materials--Digitization; Digital libraries--Collection development; Oral history--Collection and preservation; Project management

Disciplines

Archival Science | Cataloging and Metadata | Collection Development and Management | History | Library and Information Science

Comments

Presented at: ALA Annual Conference, Anaheim, CA

Attached file: 1 handout

Repository Citation

Lampert, C. K. (2008, June). Controversy, Code Names, and Cultural Memory: Building the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project Digital Collection. Presentation at ALA Annual Conference, Anaheim, CA.

Available at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/libfacpresentation/75