Looking at Archival Sound:

Visual features of a spoken word archive’s web interface that enhance

the listening experience

Annie MurrayJared Wiercinski

Concordia UniversityMontreal, Quebec, Canada

September 5, 2011

International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA)42nd Annual Conference

Digital Sense and Nonsense: Digital Decision Making in Sound and Audiovisual CollectionsFrankfurt, Germany, 3-8 September 2011

Introduction

Spoken Web 2.0: Conceptualizing and Prototyping aComprehensive Web-based Digital Spoken Word Interface for Literary Research

Scholarly value of spoken word archives

Charles Bernstein argues that poetry readings:

…have been regarded largely as extensions or supplements of the visual text of the poem. Indeed, there has been very little critical work on the poet’s performance of a poem: at least, up until very recently, literary criticism has pretty much been confined to the printed text.

The reason for this is practical as much as conceptual. While archives of poetry recordings exist, they are largely inaccessible. Very few editions of poets’ sound recordings have been published. As a result, basic principles of textual scholarship have not yet been applied to the sound archive. But the times ‘they are a-changin’ (Bernstein, 2009, p. 964).

Benefits of audio playback

Hearing spoken word content versus reading it

Ambiguity of printed word Both speech and non-speech sounds

(or their absence) can provide information

What you look at while you listen can change what you hear.

Literature review

Cognitive science Education Literary studies Library and information science

Visual features that enhance the listening experience

1. Tethering audio-playback and written transcript

2. Sound visualization3. Accompanying videos and images

Tethering audio-playback and written transcript

Sound visualization

Sound visualization

Sound visualization

Sound visualization

Accompanying videos and images

Annie.Murray@concordia.ca Jared.Wiercinski@concordia.ca