USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive

1. Sam Gustman
Chief Technology Officer and Associate Dean
USC Shoah Foundation and USC Libraries
sgustman@usc.edu
http://sfi.usc.edu
ALA Presentation

2. 3
Audio-Visual Testimonies
62
countries
41
languages
2,000
interviewers
1,000
videographers
70
regional staff
54,369
video testimonies
115,589
hours
=
7.5M
clips
64,826
Indexing
terms
1.86M
people
48,941
locations
718,940
images
7 years of manual indexing

3. 3
Testimonies by Event and Experience
European Holocaust, 1939-1945 53,904
Jewish Survivors 51,311
Rescuer and Aid Providers 1,158
Liberators and Liberation Witnesses 429
Sinti and Roma Survivors 406
Political Prisoners 268
Miscellaneous (World War II) 153
Jehovah’s Witness Survivors 84
War Crimes Trial Participants 62
Non-Jewish Forced Laborers 14
Eugenics Policies Survivors 13
Homosexual Survivors 6
Guatemalan Genocide, 1978-1996 10
Guatemalan Genocide Survivors 10
Nanjing Massacre, 1937-1938 30
Nanjing Massacre Survivors 30
Armenian Genocide, 1915-1923 334
Armenian Survivors 237
Miscellaneous 39
Descendants 20
Scholars 18
Foreign Witnesses 7
Rescuer and Aid Providers 7
Yezidi Survivors 6
Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, 86
1994
Tutsi Survivors 67
Rescuer and Aid Providers 13
Elders 4
Hutu Power Opponents 1
Victim’s Spouses 1
Cambodian Genocide, 1975-1979 5
Cambodian Genocide Survivors 5

4. 4
Testimonies by Organization
USC Shoah Foundation 51,490
Armenian Film Foundation 333
Florida Holocaust Museum 25
Fundación de Antropologia Forense de
Guatemala 9
Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman 25
Family Campus
Holocaust Museum Houston 273
Kigali Genocide Memorial 70
JFCS Holocaust Center 912
Canadian Organizations 1,232
Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives 64
Calgary Jewish Federation 10
Concordia University Centre for Oral History 30
Freeman Family Foundation 52
Jewish Archives of Edmonton & N. Alberta 15
Living Testimonies, McGill University 103
Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre 549
Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre 406
Ottawa Jewish Archives 3

5. 5
Testimonies by Interview Language
Arabic 15
Armenian 158
Bulgarian 624
Croatian 393
Czech 560
Danish 67
Dutch 1,076
English 27,213
Flemish 5
French 1,905
German 924
Greek 318
Hebrew 6,280
Hungarian 1,348
Italian 433
Japanese 1
Khmer 2
Kinyarwanda 75
Kurdish 3
Ladino 9
Latvian 1
Lithuanian 46
Macedonian 9
Mandarin 30
Norwegian 34
Polish 1,515
Portuguese 560
Romani 24
Romanian 130
Russian 7,137
Serbian 384
Sign 5
Slovak 561
Slovenian 6
Spanish 1,362
Swedish 264
Turkish 14
Ukrainian 304
Yiddish 574

6. 6
Argentina 731
Armenia 14
Australia 2,495
Austria 189
Belarus 246
Belgium 203
Bolivia 23
Bosnia & Herzegovina 55
Brazil 564
Bulgaria 628
Canada 4,076
Chile 65
China 30
Colombia 15
Costa Rica 19
Croatia 327
Czech Republic 563
Denmark 94
Ecuador 9
Estonia 9
Finland 1
France 1,658
Georgia 6
Germany 672
Greece 324
Guatemala 9
Hungary 790
Ireland 4
Israel 8,459
Italy 418
Japan 1
Kazakhstan 6
Latvia 79
Lithuania 137
Macedonia 9
Mexico 111
Moldova 284
The Netherlands 1,046
New Zealand 53
Norway 34
Peru 2
Poland 1,382
Portugal 2
Romania 147
Russia 675
Rwanda 73
Slovakia 657
Slovenia 11
South Africa 250
Spain 7
Sweden 325
Switzerland 69
Syria 30
Ukraine 3,427
United Kingdom 871
United States 21,251
Uruguay 124
Uzbekistan 25
Venezuela 227
Yugoslavia 346
Zimbabwe 8
Testimonies by Interview Country

7.  Index terms structured in a thesaurus and include over
62,000 terms in compliance with NISO Z39.19
standard.
 Cataloguing provides biographical information for
testimony level access:
 Interviewee’s names
 DOB/POB
 Experience information
 Religious affiliations
 Language of interview
 Place of interview
 Date of interview
 Video indexing provides access to each minute of
video as if it was a web page using index terms:
 Geographic locations
 Types of places (camps, prisons, ghettos, etc.)
 Dates
 Years
 Historic events
 People
 Organizations
 Experiences (pre-, during, and post-WWII)
 Psychological responses
 Movements/Migrations
Cataloguing/Indexing
 Information can be converted into XML or
MARC formats.
7

8. 8
 Automatic mass digitization systems can
process 100,000 tapes per year.
 Digital files made for each tape:
 MJPEG2000
 MPEG-2
 Flash
 Windows Media
 Quicktime
 MPEG-1
 (many other formats supported)
 Quality assurance systems for all content
Digitization

9. Houston Holocaust Museum Umatic
Houston Holocaust Museum Beta SP

10. Digital Preservation
 5 Petabyte database
 SHA-1 based fixity for all files
 Automatic media retirement
based on age
 Mirroring of all content in multiple
locations around the world.
10

11. Channels of Access to Testimony
Featured clips, educational
content, whole testimony; to
browse, download & use
USCSF Website
Limited search and browse; 96
full-length testimonies, 30 clips &
163 related videos
YouTube
Visual History Archive
Watch and search within 54,000
Institute testimonies
IWitness
1,200+ video testimonies,
multimedia activities &
resources for teaching
purposes
iTunes U
Downloadable podcasts of clips
& featured interviews
VHA Online
1600 viewable testimonies , plus
all 54,000 testimonies metadata
11

12. 12
ScholarlyAccess – Visual HistoryArchive
vha.usc.edu
Watch and search within
54,000 Institute testimonies.
Available at 58 institutions
worldwide (so far).

13. Visual History Archive Sites
13
2003
University of Southern California
2005
University of Michigan
2006
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
2007
University of Minnesota
Monash University, Australia
Duke University
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
University of California, San Diego
2008
Columbia University
Syracuse University
Brown University
University of South Florida
Yad Vashem, Israel
Technische Universität Berlin, Zentrum für
Antisemitismusforschung, Germany
2009
Texas A&M University
Stanford University
Central European University, Hungary
Charles University in Prague, Czech
Republic
Clark University
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
2010
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
University of Minnesota Duluth
Jewish Holocaust Centre, Australia
Universität Salzburg, Austria
New York University
2011
Northwestern University
Royal Holloway, University of London,
United Kingdom
Prague Jewish Museum, Czech Republic
McMaster University, Canada
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
University of Athens, Greece
2012
University of Pennsylvania
History Meeting House, Poland
University of Haifa, Israel
University of Michigan Flint
University of Michigan Dearborn
L.A. Museum of the Holocaust
Stiftung Topographie des Terror, Germany
2013
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Instituto Centrale per I Beni Sonori ed
Audiovisivi, Italy
University of Toronto, Canada
University of Ottawa, Canada
Museum of the History of Polish Jews,
Poland
EötvöLTE University, Hungary
Drexel University
University of Vienna, Austria
2014
Dartmouth College
The University of Texas at Dallas
École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France
2015
Indiana University
2016
American University of Paris, France
Cornell University
Michigan State University
University of Melbourne, Australia
Victoria University of Wellington,
New Zealand
Chapman University
Montreal Holocaust Museum and Jewish
Public Library, Canada
Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives,
Canada
Calgary Jewish Federation, Canada
Concordia University Centre for Oral History
and Digital Storytelling, Canada
Freeman Family Foundation Holocaust
Education Centre, Canada
Jewish Archives and Historical Society of
Edmonton and Northern Alberta, Canada
McGill University Oral History Centre,
Canada
Ottawa Jewish Archives, Canada
Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust
Education Centre, Canada
University of Denver
Georgetown University
Australian Catholic University, Australia
Princeton University
2016 (cont’d)
Ferris State University
Keene State College
Stockton University
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main,
Germany
La Trobe University, Australia
2017
Museum of Jewish Heritage
Nova Southeastern University
Centennial College, Canada
University of Alberta, Canada
University of Kent, United Kingdom
Appalachian State University
University of Tennessee
2003 – 2017: 82 Sites (byYear of InitialAccess)

14. VHA Transcripts
• All testimonies within the VHA will be transcribed over the coming years
• 900 German transcriptions are currently available
• The first batch of English transcriptions are targeted to go live in
November
• Functionality includes:
• Auto scroll
• Search
• Reader pane size and placement options
• Print

15. IWitness
15
IWitness
iwitness.usc.edu
Testimony, Education, and the
Internet for 21st Century
Learners
Provides students ages 13-18
and their teachers with a
searchable collection of more
than 1,000 video testimonies of
Holocaust survivors and other
witnesses from the Institute’s
archive.
Kaltura.com and WeVideo
based system.
2300+ teachers and 6100+
students signed up to date.
109 Activities authored by
teachers.

16. Pinchas Gutter
March 2014
• 50 cameras arranged to record 3D
• Filmed for 7 days, 5-6 hours each day
• Over 1,000 questions asked
• In total, 1,500 responses captured
Pilot Interview

17. • Multi-tenant and Private
I. Digitization
II. Cataloging
III. Digital preservation (currently 50+ Petabytes)
IV. Digital Library access
V. File-server services for large assets
Vision: If Google is where you go to search for data, USC is
where you go to preserve, curate and research the data.

18. Guide to Fulfilling NSF’s Data
Management Plan (DMP) Requirements
https://research.usc.edu/files/2011/05/NSF_Data_Mgmt_rev_AG.doc
“The USC Digital Repository (USCDR) provides fee-based consulting and services to
help USC researchers meet NSF requirements. Services include digitization,
cataloging, preservation, archiving, and online access. Consulting is also available to
help researchers determine appropriate web hosting and web design solutions. USCDR
is a center that is jointly operated by the USC Libraries, the USC Shoah Foundation
Institute (SFI), and USC's Information Technology Services (ITS) division. As such,
USCDR is able to offer researchers access to the professional expertise and
technological infrastructure of the SFI, Libraries, and ITS.”