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Avalon Media System is proud to announce the successful completion of integrations between Avalon, a Samvera solution bundle for audio and video management, and OHMS, the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer.

Libraries and archives host rich collections that include audio and video recordings of oral histories and interviews, often first-hand accounts of events important to cultural memory.  While many of these recordings have languished in formats that made them inaccessible to researchers and, in many cases, the public, the combination of OHMS and Avalon can make these oral histories accessible and manageable, leveraging open technologies designed specifically for the specific needs of libraries and archives.

The integrations, developed by AVP (formerly AVPreserve), will enable media managers to use the latest version of OHMS to index or connect interview transcripts with video or audio media, managed and stored in the robust Avalon Media System via Avalon's JavaScript player API.  Paired with the powerful time-based search, discovery and navigation features in OHMS, the final product will create a package complete with transcripts and menus derived from user-created metadata, ready for display.  

Douglas Boyd of Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries states “Indiana University is the first institution besides the University of Kentucky to make a significant contribution to the OHMS code.  We are always looking for ways to make OHMS a more effective solution and the incorporation of Avalon represents significant step forward for OHMS and Avalon.”

This work was supported by the Indiana University Office of the Bicentennial as part of Indiana University’s Bicentennial Oral History Project.  Avalon Media System is developed by Indiana University Libraries and Northwestern University Libraries, with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  OHMS is developed and managed at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries and was made open source and free through support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. 

For more information regarding Avalon and OHMS, please contact Avalon at:  http://www.avalonmediasystem.org/contact

Avalon is seeking your input to help us create Avalon Media System specific training.

You can tell us what areas would be of the most use for your team when it comes to training, and what works best for you in terms of delivery.  

Just fill out this brief survey to give us some ideas.  The survey should only take about 5-10 minutes to complete, and if you have additional ideas for what we could offer, we're all ears.

We'll follow up soon to let you know our plans!

If you'd like to discuss training in more detail or have other topics of discussion, as always, please use the following channels

• email the list-serve at:  avalon-discuss-l@list.indiana.edu
• if you're a Samvera Community member, just look for us on Slack at #avalon
• or contact the Community Manager directly at:  ryan dot steans at northwestern dot edu

Jon Cameron (Indiana) hosts and Adam Arling (Northwestern) stars in Sprint Demo #153 

See our first public demo of the IIIF stand-alone player

View here

Runtime:  6 minutes, 30 seconds

Avalon will host the second Avalon monthly forum on Wednesday, June 13^th at 4:00 Eastern.

Topics will include:  

• Northwestern University – Avalon for e-Reserves Media Distribution (Molly Zolnay and Natalie Pelster)
• Avalon and IIIF for Video (Adam Arling and Brian Keese)

The Forum will last approx.. 30 minutes.

If you can’t make it, we’ll be posting the presentation video to the Avalon Demo site within the days following.  (Our first Forum is here.)

To join the Meeting:

https://bluejeans.com/730726712

To join via Room System:

Video Conferencing System: bjn.vc -or-199.48.152.152

Meeting ID : 730726712

To join via phone :

1)  Dial:

                +1.408.740.7256 (United States)

                +1.888.240.2560 (US Toll Free)

                +1.408.317.9253 (Alternate number)

                (see all numbers - http://bluejeans.com/numbers)

2)  Enter Conference ID : 730726712

Under a grant from the Andrew A. Mellon Foundation, Indiana University is partnering with AVP and WGBH Educational Foundation on behalf of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting to configure Avalon Media System to ingest, manage and provide access to 70+ years of digititized public broadcasting content.

To see the full press release, please visit the American Archive of Public Broadcasting website.

Inaugural Avalon Forum

May 2, 2018 - 4:00 PM Eastern, 1:00 PM Pacific

• Duration:  Approximately 30 minutes
• Who should attend:  current users of Avalon Media System,  those who are considering Avalon as a solution for managing the audio and visual resources of their organization.  Librarians, archivists, administrators, developers, DevOps and SysAdmins - if you are working with audio and/ or visual media, we'd love to hear from you.

The Avalon Forum is a new, monthly webinar series providing the Avalon Community with an opportunity to learn about:

• the direction and development of Avalon
• community activities and opportunities
• how your colleagues are using the system

and, we hope you will take us up on the opportunity to speak directly to the Avalon team, ask questions and tell us about the challenges you're facing as you take on video and audio.

In this first Forum, we will provide a history of Avalon, describe current efforts and share our plans for future development.  We'll also discuss how we're working with the Samvera and Hyrax Communities, how you can participate to help ensure Avalon grows in useful directions, and provide opportunity for community feedback.

In future installments of the Avalon Forum, we'll be showcasing how your colleagues are using Avalon Media System.  We'll also discuss opportunities for outreach, training and other ways we can enhance the Community. 

We hope you'll be ready and willing to spotlight the good work at your institution or organization.

Ways to join the Avalon Forum:

In Spring 2018, The Avalon Team will begin work on Avalon 7.  As we move down this pathway, we want to invite you to join us, and help build a better Avalon!

As part of our commitment to the Samvera Community, Avalon 7 will be developed as a feature-parity-plus re-architecting of the Avalon 6 solution bundle.  Rather than developing a stand-alone and redundant Samvera stack, this version will utilize Hyrax/ Samvera as the underlying core.  In doing so, Avalon will focus on development of audio and video access and delivery technologies, leaning on the trusted capabilities of Hyrax and Samvera.  

Benefits will include: 

• allowing adopters to learn and manage fewer stacks
• allowing adopters to consider utilizing a single Avalon/ Hyrax instance for IR and other repository needs
• synchronicity between Avalon and Hyrax development 
• Avalon development team participating in and advancing Hyrax development
• Avalon feature developments resulting in contributions back to Hyrax

We are now seeking members of the community interested in joining us in co-developing Avalon 7. 

How you can participate:

Community Sprint Cycles

Sprint Cycles will last about 6 - 8 weeks, broken into regular, bi-weekly sprints, at which time contributors can join us or step away.  Community Sprint Cycles will not begin until April, but if you would like the opportunity to become familiar with Hyrax, as well as the Avalon feature set, we would very much like to discuss your interest.  

Pull Requests

Further, we are aware that many potential contributors may not be able to work on our timeline or may wish to work in short bursts on particular areas of interest.  If you prefer to work on individual pieces of Avalon, even out of band from the sprint cycles, we can certainly welcome the expertise of the community. 

For Non-Developers

Developing a system requires the input and know-how of a wide-variety of experts.  If you would like to join us in a role such as: 

• Quality Assurance/ Testing
• product feedback
• metadata oversight
• media or music librarian... 

 Your participation can help make Avalon a system that meets the needs of an even wider community.  

Stay in the Loop

To see what is occurring with Avalon, and to get an idea where we're headed, please visit the Avalon Roadmap.

You may also wish to join our communication channels, or review our project progress.  

To let us know you'd like to consider joining us in Avalon 7 Development - please fill out the survey at the link:  https://goo.gl/forms/BnhYyHW5xMbBeliR2

If you have any questions, please just let us know:  avalon@dlib.indiana.edu

-Ryan Steans

Avalon Community Manager

• The Avalon Media System team is proud to announce the release of Avalon 6.3.  
   
  This version is now available for download at the Avalon Media System GitHub.  
   
  Co-developed at Indiana University and Northwestern University, Avalon 6.3 delivers several new features requested by the community.  
   
  Media Player Upgrade
  Version 6.3 utilizes the latest version of MediaElement.js, stepping away from RTMP and moving to HLS.  
  • Adobe Flash Player no longer required for media playback - users may now view video in HTML5-based formats, meeting modern browser requirements
  • A loading indicator displays in the Media Player while content loads, alerting users to status
  • More intuitive navigation thanks to a refresh of look and feel for the Media Player
   
  Playlists
  • Users can now create their own "Tags" for playlists.  This feature enables users to better organize, "search for" and "sort by" playlists
  • Save preferences for sorting of the playlist index page, allowing users to return to a persistent view of the playlists each time they log in
   
  AWS Support
  Refactoring of the components necessary for better deployment and operation of Avalon on Amazon Web Services 
   
    Improved Batch Ingest Functionality
  • During batch uploads, users can now re-upload metadata via spreadsheet to sort out issues prior to publication 
  • Improved batch ingest operations allow for large numbers of items to upload with greater ease
  • System emails regarding failure of batch ingests are now more explicit regarding the source of the issue
   
  Bug Fixes and Minor Changes
  • Playlist items no longer intermittently skip
  • Issues with LTI login have been resolved
   
  Version 6.3 completes the majority of the work planned for Avalon 6.  While users can expect the Avalon development team to issue maintenance releases and minor improvements, in February 2018, development focus will shift to Avalon 7 (please stay tuned for additional announcements and how you can participate!).
   
  Avalon 6.3 release notes: https://github.com/avalonmediasystem/avalon/releases/tag/v6.3.2
  Avalon upgrade instructions:  https://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/display/VarVideo/Upgrading+Avalon
  Avalon documentation:  https://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/display/VarVideo/Documentation
   
  Development of Avalon is supported in part by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
   
  For more information on Avalon Media System, please visit our website or contact us:
   
  http://www.avalonmediasystem.org/
  avalon@dlib.indiana.edu
   
   
   
   
   

The following is a guest post by Tomasz Neugebauer of Concordia University.

In early December 2016, the participants of the Literary Audio Symposium at Concordia University explored the literary historical study, digital development, and critical and pedagogical engagement with collections of spoken recordings. Many recordings are already accessible online through repositories such as PennSound and the Cylinder Archive Project, but the potential benefits of collaborative and coordinated development of digitized spoken-audio archives for scholars, teachers and the public are only beginning to be realized.

Jared Wiercinski, Tim Walsh, and Tomasz Neugebauer gave a presentation about digital preservation and access with Avalon and Archivematica at the symposium. Concordia Library’s interest in digital preservation and access to audio/video collections was primarily inspired by an ongoing discussion with Concordia’s Center for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. COHDS developed a custom software solution in 2010 called Stories Matter for managing audio/visual oral history data, but the software had faced challenges with sustainability of development, insufficient digital preservation functionality, and lack of integration with a web browser. A summary of that presentation is provided below.

We began our needs analysis for supporting audio/visual research collections by looking to support the functionality developed in Stories Matter, including:

• The ability to manage the structure of oral history metadata, which is divided into projects, interviewees, sessions, and clips
• Providing for item level permission levels for access
• Attaching transcripts, additional documents, and interviewer observations
• Save/edit/browse playlists

We also desired a specialized research workflow functionality for interoperability within the library platform. For example, it should be possible to extract the data from the repository using formats to be ingested into research tools that can generate tag clouds and network visualizations of the data.

In an ideal world, digital preservation and access for all formats would be accomplished within the same system, but in reality, different access systems exist for target formats and audiences. Avalon Media System is designed to provide access to large collections of digital audio and video, alongside a community of educational, media, and open technology institutions. As audio/video collections are of interest to Concordia Library, Avalon is highly appealing, but it also presents a challenge, as we also need to provide access to text and image objects. Ensuring the enduring usability, authenticity, and discoverability of these materials requires a dedicated digital preservation system supporting a wide range of document types. Archivematica was selected as the open source digital preservation solution that will be used for preservation planning, identification, characterization, and migration tasks.

Our rationale for selecting Avalon as a top choice centers on our need of a system for qualitative research data in audio/video format. The strengths of Avalon include its evolution out of the successful Variations Digital Music Library project from Indiana University Bloomington, and its strong development community with a proven record of feature-packed releases. The key features of Avalon that make it a top choice for an access system include:

• Hierarchical structure of objects, with units, collections, items, sections, and time-stamped start and end points
• Sophisticated access and permission controls at collection and item level
• Robust metadata and faceted discovery
• Playlists including items and sections, public or private
• Captions and subtitles
• Integration with HydraDam2 and the Spotlight exhibition tool

Additionally, while Avalon’s excellent support for video is a key requirement for oral history, the fact that Avalon acknowledges audio as a distinct format with unique requirements is important for spoken word content and other audio types. Audio research data is important for scholarly research in many disciplines; Mark R. Roosa’s (2015) “Sound and Audio Archives” ( In M. V. Cloonan (Ed.), Preserving our heritage: perspectives from antiquity to the digital age (pp. 278-287). London: Facet Publishing.) lists multiple audio types such as Linguistic, Folklore, Oral history, Ethnographic, Dialectic, Music, Ethnomusicology, Bioacoustics, and Spoken word (p. 279). Although commercial tools like Soundcloud and Spotify offer robust functionality, there is a large gap left from these tools concerning how audio is utilized in institutional repositories. Avalon helps to fill this functionality.

The fact that an upcoming version of Avalon will integrate the Spotlight exhibition tool developed at Stanford University is particularly promising. Spotlight extends the repository ecosystem by providing a means for reusing digital content in other scholarly websites, allowing for the possibility of pulling content out of Avalon and into new research contexts.

Our concerns for Avalon, in addition to its limited capabilities for non-audio/video documents, include its composition of a complex set of software components that can be difficult to install and maintain. There are also missing features in Avalon that we hope will be added, such as administrative, technical and provenance metadata; transcription integration; the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer integration mentioned in the development roadmap; specialized research workflow interface (comparable to a platform like Databrary); and user annotations. Community sustainability is also a concern, as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant that secured its development is ending in January 2017.  However, we are delighted to learn about the recent IMLS grant to support the sustainability of Avalon through, among other developments, the integration of Archivematica. Ideally, in the long term, a workflow for ingesting content from Archivematica’s Dissemination Information Packages (i.e., access files optimized for the Web) into Avalon would need to be developed. In the short term, it is possible to keep the workflows separate and rely on Avalon directly for all transcoding during ingesting.
 
The presentation at the Literary Audio Symposium raised questions that we continue to consider. From a software architecture point of view, what conditions are necessary to facilitate the development of a sustainable feature-rich access platform for audio/video content? Does audio/video content need to be accessible in a separate system, or can it be accommodated in the same digital asset management system as all other special collections formats? Given that there is an inherent lack of awareness around digital preservation issues, how do we promote the development of sustainable and responsible preservation planning for audio and video? Should we continue to build a wide variety of niche repositories, or aim towards a strategy of using centralized repositories? Ultimately, governments and cultural institutions including libraries, archives, and museums have the responsibility of preserving digital research and cultural content, as well as making it accessible.