Project Jukebox is evolving again to meet the challenges of delivering digital oral histories online in a new and innovative fashion! In 1988 Project Jukebox was one of the first oral history programs in the United States to provide digital access to oral history recordings. In those early years, before the Internet, Project Jukebox programs were developed on stand-alone computers that loaded individual CDs to play the audio, hence the name ‘Project Jukebox’. Over the years, Project Jukebox has changed its delivery methods as new technology has become available. We went from stand-alone Hypercard programs, to web-based HTML programs, to using Testimony Software and then to using Drupal 6. As technology ever moves forward at an almost impossible pace to keep up with, these delivery methods have become cumbersome and a new delivery method was sought. The Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has supported the development and creation of a new solution and is pleased to now unveil our Drupal Content Management System (CMS) format created in Drupal 7. Highlights of our new delivery format include:
- An interactive, easy to use and user friendly interface
- Multiple ways to access the recordings in Project Jukebox - either browse by project, people, interviews or slideshows
- Listening to the recording in full, jump ahead or back to a particular section, or jump to a particular spot in the transcript to immediately focus on a particular section
- Access to the entire transcript, or text for the audio appearing under the play bar as a speaker talks
- More metadata, or information about the actual recording, which can be found under the Digital Assets Information box on an interview page
- Slideshows associated with an interview
- Themes associated with every interview
We welcome feedback on our new site. Please email Leslie McCartney, Curator of Oral History at UAF with your comments or suggestion on how to improve our new oral history delivery format at lmccartney@alaska.edu.