us-005585
reproduction services: If you would like to obtain copies of testimonies for interviewees and family members, license footage and images from testimonies, and/or license a collection of testimonies, please contact [Access Services](https://sfiaccess.usc.edu/).
agent has or had location: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/institutions/us-005585/locations/1
authorized by: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/institutions/us-005585/mandates/1
has or had agent name: Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation
finding aids: Search the VHA [login required] [here](https://vha.usc.edu/search-relay). In addition to indexing the interview topics, indexers also enter the biographical information from the interviewee’s Pre-Interview Questionnaire (PIQ), which becomes the basis of each interviewee’s biographical profile. In the Visual History Archive, users can view the definition of each index term, which is based meticulous research and consultation of primary and secondary sources. The definition of each term includes when it was introduced to the archive. This is vital information since new index terms are being added on a regular basis. When new terms are added, they are only used by indexers from that point onwards. Indexers do not go back to previously indexed testimonies to apply the new terms. Thus staying aware of when the testimony was indexed and when the index term was added will provide users context to determine whether they should be searching with other index terms as well. The structure of the USC Shoah Foundation controlled vocabulary is based on the ANSI/NISO Z39.19 Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Thesauri. All index terms are in English, regardless of the original language of the interview. Currently there are over 65,000 index terms, with over 80% of these being geographic locations. Currently, transcripts are available in the VHA for over 3,700 English-language and for 896 German-language testimonies (NB: German-language transcripts, not translations). The transcripts can only be viewed in the subscription version of the VHA. Research Guides: see [here](https://libguides.usc.edu/vha)
records management and collecting policies: Locating the Holocaust survivors and witnesses who would become interviewees for the USC Shoah Foundation’s original collection required perseverance, sensitivity, and, most of all, the courage of those willing to share their stories. Outreach methods varied by country and included both far-reaching media campaigns and grassroots efforts, such as circulating an outreach flier that was translated into 20 languages, along with other forms of local outreach. Word of mouth quickly spread in survivor communities, motivating many survivors and witnesses to come forward to tell their stories. Interviewers were recruited internationally, drawn from a wide array of backgrounds, communicating in scores of languages and united by the mission to document the stories of the survivors and witnesses before their memories were lost to history. The volunteer interviewers came from across all walks of life – journalists, educators, members of the community, academics, survivors, children of survivors, and others – and did not need to be experts in the Holocaust to contribute their time and energy. Each interviewer participated in training by USC Shoah Foundation, which ultimately trained 2,300 interviewer candidates in 24 countries. Training sessions included history, interviewing methodology, and practical exercises. During its formative years, the USC Shoah Foundation devised an interviewing methodology in consultation with Holocaust historians, psychologists, and experts in the field of oral history. The USC Shoah Foundation still follows this methodology today in its collection of new interviews. The partners who deposit their interviews in the archive follow their own interviewing methodologies. (You can read more about them in the Our Partners pages.) The interviewing process is comprised of four stages: pre-interview, research and preparation, interview, and the after-the-interview stage. Each one of these stages contains specific elements and guidelines. Prior to an interview…
history: In 1994, after the filming of Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg founded the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation with the aim of videotaping 50,000 first-person accounts by Holocaust survivors and witnesses. The massive global documentation effort began with the first interview on April 18, 1994. The foundation trained 2,300 interviewer candidates in 24 countries, hired 1,000 videographers, and recruited more than 100 regional coordinators and staff in 34 countries to organize the interviewing process in their respective regions. Between 1994 and 2000, interviews with Holocaust survivors and witnesses took place in 56 countries and were conducted in 32 languages. The interviewing methodology was developed in consultation with Holocaust historians, psychologists, and experts in the field of oral history. The life history format of the interview meant interviewees discussed their lives before, during, and after the Holocaust. The organization’s trainings, interviewer guidelines, and videographer guidelines ensured that the interviews would be conducted with a consistent approach. In the foundation’s offices on the backlot of Universal Studios, staff pioneered innovations to address the challenges of how to ingest, preserve, and catalog the massive number of hours of video being recorded on Betacam SP tapes. The organization holds 11 patents on the digital collection management technologies it developed. The Visual History Archive now contains more than 115,000 hours of testimony – the equivalent of a dozen years. Due to the patented indexing and search engine, users can pinpoint moments of interest down to the minute. In January of 1999, the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation recorded its 50,000th testimony. As collection of new testimonies slowed down compared to the massive collection efforts before, work on cataloging the collection intensified, and the organization focused even more deeply on developing global partnerships to achieve its…
name: USC Shoah Foundation – Institute for Visual History and Education
is or was holder of: us-005585-usa usc shoah foundation institute visual history archive
buildings: Currently more than 160 institutions around the world have access to the VHA.
sources: national reports [USC Shoah Foundation](http://sfi.usc.edu/) website consulted on 09/11/2014
general description: The Visual History Archive contains over 115,000 hours of testimony, the equivalent of 13 years of material. Safeguarding this material has been a primary aim of the USC Shoah Foundation since its inception. Between 1994 and 1999, the USC Shoah Foundation recorded interviews on 235,005 Betacam SP videotapes. All physical media storage experiences data rot at some point in time. Conservative estimates were that videotapes would have a 20-year shelf life, and digital hard drives would have five years before visual content would show signs of age-related damage. In a rapidly changing technology landscape, the USC Shoah Foundation faced challenges of how to safeguard the testimonies in perpetuity. In 2008, with funding from the USC Office of the Provost and Oracle, the USC Shoah Foundation began a four-year, multimillion-dollar effort to digitally preserve the interviews in its Visual History Archive. Tapes were transferred from the storage facility in the eastern United States and processed to generate copies in a digital format called Motion JPEG 2000, which captures the picture and sound quality of the master recordings. In addition to generating Motion JPEG 2000 duplicates of the testimonies for preservation, the Institute generated other copies in commonly used formats such as MPEG, QuickTime, Flash, and Windows Media Player. These digital files are continuously checked and analyzed for signs of potential damage. A robot continuously loads each cartridge containing the digital files into a reader and analyzes the files for any signs of data damage or disruption. If there are any signs of damage, that piece of storage is trashed. No media is saved for more than three years and every piece of the archive is inspected every six months. Constantly checking and migrating the data ensures its longevity. When the USC Shoah Foundation discovered that nearly 5,000 testimonies had technical or mechanical issues, such as video dropout or flickering or audio problems, it assem…
type: Institution
conditions of access: On the public internet, desktop computers and mobile devices can search the entire Visual History Archive and view around 4,000 video testimonies. The full VHA, containing 55,000 testimonies, is accessible only at subscribing educational and research institutions.
sources: [Visual History Archive](https://vha.usc.edu/home) website consulted on 28/12/2022