Help

1. How do I search for an interview?

You can search for an interview in three distinct ways.

  1. The initial ‘Search’ box on the home page allows you to identify interviewers by name, role and keyword. Results will appear below indicating the distribution of results between these categories; and below this, the results themselves, including basic metadata.

    If no results are returned by your search text, a grey box will appear below, asking if you want to undertake a ‘Transcript Search’. From here you can choose PDF transcript search or Speech to text transcript search. Note that for a PDF search, once a search result has been returned it is necessary to go back to the pdf, and repeat the search in the individual document.

  2. Filtered browsing can also be undertaken from the home page. As you select different facets, the list of interviews displayed will change.

  3. PDF and Speech-to-Text searches can also be undertaken via the pull-down ‘Search’ menu.

PDF transcript search

This search allows you to search the text of the pdfs in the collection. It should be noted that interviewees were permitted to amend these transcripts, so they may differ from the Audio Visual record.

The full functionality of this system has not been set up, so it is not possible to filter by fields. Once a search result has been returned it is necessary to go back to the pdf, and repeat the search in the individual document.

The Speech-to-text transcriptions do contain inaccuracies, which could not be amended during the course of the project. If your search does not return a result, it may be because of an error in the machine transcription, and not because the word does not appear in the site data. In this instance, it is advisable to try alternative words or spellings and/or search the pdf transcriptions.

2. What can I do with an interview?

Once you enter a single Oral History interview, you can then listen to/watch the recording, read the transcripts and explore and analyse them in various ways.

Below the title of the interview you can find basic information - the ‘identity’ of the interview, (the Collection where it belongs), the name of the interviewer and interviewee, the interview date, the duration of the interview as well as the associated transcripts for this interview. In most cases there is also an image of the interviewee.

Specifically, for each interview you can:

  • listen to or view the recording(s) using the Record Player
  • navigate through the automatically-generated transcript via the Timecoded speech to text transcription In this panel, you will find a workbench that allows you to:
    • click the text to navigate the specific point in the timeline.
    • select a clip of the text by manually setting a start and an end point and saving your clip. This will generate a link for the segment.

3. Teaching resources

Teaching resources can be found here https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/connected-histories-of-the-bbc/teaching-resources/

4. Advanced searches

Advanced search information can be found here: https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/connected-histories-of-the-bbc/using-the-chbbc-catalogue/

Using the CHBBC Website