Visual HistoryArchive Program

In a move that will reimagine the waypeople use and broadly expand access tothe world’s largest archive of genocidetestimony, USC Shoah Foundation –e Institute for Visual History andEducation has announced its VisualHistory Archive Program.

Changing the World rough TestimonyAs the steward of the world’s largest col-

lection of testimony from Holocaust andgenocide survivors, USC Shoah Foundation– The Institute for Visual History and Edu-cation has long used its Visual HistoryArchive for education, research and action.Since first using Internet2 in 2002 to makethe Archive available at Rice University, YaleUniversity, and University of Southern Cali-fornia, the number of subscribing institu-tions has grown to 79 around the world.But limitations posed by technology andother factors have put constraints on the rateat which the Institute can increase the num-ber of institutions that have access.

To overcome this challenge and keep pacewith rising demand, the Institute launchedthe Visual History Archive Program in early2016, an ambitious initiative to significantlybroaden its audience for the Visual HistoryArchive, which contains 55,000 audiovisualtestimonies from witnesses and survivors ofthe Holocaust and other genocides, includ-ing the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi inRwanda, the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, theGuatemalan Genocide of the early 1980s,The Armenian Genocide of 1915 and theCambodian Genocide of the 1970s.

Made possible by major donations fromLee Liberman, a member of the Institute’sBoard of Councilors Executive Committee,and the Koret Foundation, whose boardpresident, Anita Friedman, also sits on theInstitute’s Board of Councilors, the wide-

ranging, five-year plan seeks to reimaginehow its four main audiences connect to tes-timonies – colleges and universities, second-ary education, communities, andorganizations.

The goal is to maximize access and opti-mize use, increasing research and education,while continuing to be respectful of theunique nature of the content.

“Twenty years ago, when we begancollecting testimonies, we did not

foresee a time where making themaccessible via the Internet would bea possibility. This was a time before

Google, YouTube, and Facebook,when Americans with Internet ac-cess spent fewer than 30 minutes a

month on the Web.”Stephen Smith, executive director

USC Shoah Foundation

Innovating Research rough TestimonyThe first step of the Visual History

Archive Program will widen viewership atcolleges and universities. It consists of alandmark agreement announced in March2016 between the Institute and ProQuest, atechnology company that brings together

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dozens of the world’s most highly used his-torical documents databases to create thelargest single academic research resourceavailable today.

As per the compact, ProQuest – whosemeta-database is a staple in virtually everymajor university library – has become theexclusive distributor of USC Shoah Founda-tion’s Visual History Archive to colleges anduniversities around the world (exceptChina). This means that access to the VisualHistory Archive will no longer require ahigh-speed Internet2 connection; access willinstead be available through ProQuest viathe standard Internet, providing a contem-porary streaming experience.

“The Visual History Archive is ofenormous value to the world of ac-

ademia. From providing new in-sights on how the ‘Forgotten

Holocaust’ unfolded in modernUkraine, to helping neuroscientists

understand how gratitude ismapped in the brain, the Visual

History Archive is a priceless aca-demic resource that will benefit not

only historians, but researchers ofmany disciplines for generations to

come.”Wolf Gruner, director,

USC Shoah FoundationCenter for Advanced Genocide Research

It is expected that the ProQuest agree-ment will boost the number of Archive sub-scribers from the current 75 institutionsworldwide to more than 200 within twoyears and at least 500 by the Institute’s 25thAnniversary in 2019.

Another transformational feature of theProQuest partnership is how it will enablethe production of archival-quality transcriptsfor all 54,000 testimonies. This massive en-deavor will complement the Institute’s in-dexing methods and further refine the

process of searching testimonies for specificpoints of interest.

Until now it has been prohibitive for theInstitute to transcribe its testimonies owingto the scale of the Visual History Archive,which contains over 114,000 hours of testi-mony.

The transcription process is expected totake five years and will be undertaken by na-tive-speaking academic research transcrip-tionists for the 41 languages represented inthe Visual History Archive.

The transcripts will not replace the currentuse of indexed keywords. Instead, they willwork together to provide scholars and re-searchers the best option that suits theirneeds. The transcripts will appear on thescreen as interviewees are talking so therewill not be any loss of nuance of expressionor paralinguistic cues. And as the Institute’skeywords are tagged to specific minutes oftestimony, so too will transcripts be timestamped to exact points within a testimony.

The inclusion of the Visual HistoryArchive into ProQuest’s portfolio marks thecompany’s first foray into adding a videoarchive into its offerings, a huge milestonefor the world’s premier cross-disciplinary re-search tool for colleges and universities.

ProQuest’s database contains more thansix centuries of the world’s knowledge –from newspapers and dissertations to diariesand ancient texts to an extraordinary rangeof academic, trade and popular journals.

Developing Voice rough TestimonyStill to come for the Visual History

Archive Program are as-yet unannouncedstrategic partnerships with other companiesand institutions to expand access to otheraudience groups, including middle and highschools, individuals from interested commu-nities, governments, and non-governmentalorganizations.

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