Program Stream: Open Source Toolkit

On Saturday, December 1st, there will be a five-session stream of programming on open source software solutions.

Open Source Toolkit: Usable Solutions for Audiovisual Archivists

Open source software solutions are increasingly part of the toolkit used by media archivists. The AMIA community has become an active part of this development, working in collaboration with archival professionals and technologists to build solutions and workflows that can benefit anyone seeking to preserve our audiovisual resources and heritage. This stream will present archival practices using open source technologies, often in combination with familiar proprietary tools, that solve problems common to anyone working to preserve and make accessible digital media formats.

Curated by Dave Rice and Jack Brighton with the AMIA Open Source Committee (Kara Van Malssen, co-chair).

Sessions will include:

Indexing Multilingual Content with the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS)
Teague Schneiter, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Brendan Coates, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Creating accessible, long-form, multilingual video objects is hard; it’s not enough for the entire video to be viewable when, in many cases, only a small portion is relevant to a researcher or fan’s interests. Contextualizing the subject matter of an hours-long video in a way that facilitates research and engagement is the goal of indexing, and the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS), developed at the University of Kentucky Nunn Center for Oral History, is one way of overcoming this challenge. In late 2016, the OHMS application and viewer were updated with multilingual functionalities, creating the capability to synchronize both a transcript/translation, as well as to create a bilingual index, making all of these searchable and synchronized to the corresponding moment in the audio or video. In this instructional forum OHMS power users Teague Schneiter and Brendan Coates will demonstrate the multilingual functionalities of OHMS.

Through demonstration of a bilingual use case, instructors will walk attendees through each step of the indexing process to prepare a sample Spanish-English index. Instructors will also solicit feedback on both the platform and intellectual framework of the OHMS tool and of indexing long-form, multilingual video more generally.

Reduce the Noise: Synchronizing Newbies, Admins and Open Source Tools
Michael Campos-Quinn, UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
Susan Barrett, Arizona State University Library

This panel discussion contrasts the viewpoints of a staff member and an administrator when evaluating open source software. Michael Campos-Quinn will present the subjective experience of a novice coder navigating open source digital preservation projects, along with highlights of the dead ends, should-have-dones, and lessons learned that this has entailed during a recent project at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). This will include an overview of some key open source digipres tools available to mere mortals, and a rousing exhortation to get under the hood of your favorite tools (even/especially if you are not a seasoned programmer). Michael will list some resources available to help newcomers read a script and tell what it is doing (and hopefully why). Underpinning these details, we will explore the reasons an institution may select open source software instead of (or alongside) proprietary products and the decisions that have led BAMPFA to a combination of open source, proprietary, and DIY software. What costs exist behind ‘free’ software? How can you repurpose existing infrastructure of hardware and staff? What is a Pull Request and will it hurt? How do you know when you need to ask your community for help (and how do you do it)? This presentation is aimed at attendees with some inclination towards technical details, but should be applicable to those with zero technical background and to experienced digital preservationists.

vrecord: An Open Source Case Study
Annie Schweikert, NYU MIAP
Savannah Campbell, Dance Heritage Coalition 
Jonathan Farbowitz, Guggenheim Museum 
Andrew Weaver, Washington State University

The open source process doesn’t end once a tool is sent out into the world. Many tools represent the ongoing work of multiple authors engaged in a collaborative process of maintenance and improvement. vrecord, free and open source software established by Dave Rice that captures a video signal and turns it into a digital file, is one such tool. With 13 code contributors, from graduate students to business owners, and many more users who have contributed through feedback and testing, it is an example of cooperation and support across the AMIA community. In this case study of open source development, four presenters will discuss their work with vrecord at different points on the contribution chain. Whether early-stage coding, later-stage refinement, testing, use, submitting issues and comments, or (often) all of the above, there is a place for everyone to contribute to an open source tool. This panel will demystify the open source contribution process through the lens of vrecord and address practical steps towards getting involved. The speakers will each speak from different viewpoints on the development of vrecord. Jonathan Farbowitz helped build vrecord into a robust tool in the first couple of years of its existence; Savannah Campbell refined his work by adding automated quality control tests; Andrew Weaver contributed his expertise in audio to both vrecord and his own audio recording tool, also based on vrecord; and Annie Schweikert has migrated features onto new frameworks and maintained the project based on user issues and requests. Each speaker has also used vrecord in the course of daily work tasks, both during and after periods of active contribution, and has incorporated that experience into their work. This panel is aimed at open source beginners, but will be useful to more advanced open source developers as well.

Using open source tools to improve digital processing workflows
Laura Drake Davis, Library of Congress
Rachel Curtis, Library of Congress

In this session, the presenters discuss the role of open source tools in developing and managing digital processing workflows. Sharing strategies for working with content gathered from community-based collecting, institutional records, and traditional acquisition paths, the presenters will emphasize the universal applicability of project management strategies and workflow development, allowing attendees to apply these concepts to their diverse collection materials. Using case studies to demonstrate workflow development and incorporation of open source tools such as Open Refine, ffmpeg, MediaInfo, Python, and Trello, the presenters share their use of these open source tools in project planning and project management for small and large-scale projects. Ms. Curtis will discuss the Library’s role in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. The discussion will focus on the challenges of managing a collaborative, community-based project and the open source tools leveraged for project planning, documentation, development of workflows, and the efficient processing of preservation files. Using the AAPB as a case study, the discussion will explore the added challenge of coordinating with multiple donors, file types, metadata standards, and integrating this project into the Library’s wider goals. Ms. Davis will discuss efforts at the Library of Congress to develop efficient and automated processes and workflows for processing of born-digital moving image content incorporating open source tools. The discussion will include the value of project planning, the identification and use of open source tools to automate digital processing, and the importance of project documentation. The discussion will focus on case studies to illustrate the challenges and opportunities with small and large born-digital moving image collections.