By Abigail Christian and Whitney Hale
LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 18, 2018) — Doug Boyd, director of the University of Kentucky Libraries Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, is the 2018 recipient of the Archival Innovator Award from the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The award will be presented at a ceremony during the Joint Annual Meeting of the Council of State Archivists, National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, and SAA in Washington, D.C., Aug. 12–18.
Established in 2012, the Archival Innovator Award recognizes archivists, repositories or organizations that show creativity in approaching professional challenges or the ability to think outside the professional norm or that have an extraordinary impact on a community through archives programs and outreach.
Boyd designed and leads the development of the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS), a free digital tool that improves access to online oral histories by synchronizing text with audiovisual content on an open-source platform. Launched in 2014, there currently are OHMS accounts at more than 350 institutions in more than 20 countries and OHMS is used by a diverse array of oral history projects. Boyd’s team continues to actively develop new features, including the addition of multilingual support in 2017. This feature has greatly increased visibility of underrepresented groups in digital oral history collections, such as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ use of OHMS to publish oral histories of Latinx filmmakers.
Boyd’s supporter wrote: “While it was his creative and innovative nature that envisioned the capability for OHMS to be multilingual, it was Boyd’s leadership and focus that led to the implementation of the vision that now makes this type of project possible by institutions all over the world.”
Founded in 1936, the SAA is North America’s oldest and largest national archival professional association. SAA’s mission is to serve the educational and informational needs of more than 6,200 individual and institutional members and to provide leadership to ensure the identification, preservation and use of records of historical value. For more information, visit www.archivists.org.
The Nunn Center for Oral History at UK Libraries‘ Special Collections Research Center is recognized around the world as a leader and innovator in the collection and preservation of oral histories. The center is home to over 11,000 oral history interviews that provide a unique look into Kentucky and American history and represent an irreplaceable resource for researchers today and generations from now. The Nunn Center’s collections focus on 20th century Kentucky history, Appalachia, Kentucky writers, agriculture, black history, the history of education, politics and public policy, the Civil Rights Movement, veterans, the university, health care, as well as the coal, equine and Kentucky bourbon industries.
UK is the University for Kentucky. At UK, we are educating more students, treating more patients with complex illnesses and conducting more research and service than at any time in our 150-year history. To read more about the UK story and how you can support continued investment in your university and the Commonwealth, go to: uky.edu/uk4ky. #uk4ky #seeblue