As you’ve probably seen, Open Vault looks a little different than it did a month ago. The WGBH Media Library and Archives team have been hard at work revamping the website for over a year now and we’re happy to announce some new features you’ll be able to take advantage of.

Scholar Collections
You’ll notice on the right side of the homepage there are Scholar Collections. During the past year we’ve completed a project where scholars were granted access to WGBH material of all kinds of topics and then created articles based on their research. We’re pleased to announce that those articles, as well as related media and content, are now available on Open Vault as part of the Scholar Collections.

Browse WGBH Series and Programs
Another new feature of Open Vault is the ability to browse material that WGBH has in it’s Media Library and Archives. On the top of any page if you click on the “Series” button you’ll be taken to a page with an alphabetical list of all the Series we have material for in the Archives. Clicking on a particular Series title, you’ll be taken to a page listing the Series description as well as a list of Programs. If you click on a Program title, you’ll be taken to a page that has the description of the Program. If audio, video, or image material is available and digitized on Open Vault from a particular program, you’ll also be able to see that there as well.
We’re exposing our collection to the public in hopes to gain interest and provide access.

Request Digitization of Audio Video or Transcript
A feature that we introduced on the Boston TV News Digital Library website (bostonlocaltv.org) is the ability to request that a program be digitized. As part of this Open Vault relaunch, we’re including the ability to request a digital transcript be made of a program as well.
How it works is if you register for a free account on Open Vault, when you navigate to a page where no video is streaming and/or no transcript is viewable, you have the ability to pay for the digitization yourself by clicking the “Request Digitization” or “Request Transcription” button. This will send an email to the WGBH MLA staff and someone will be in contact with you about how much it would cost you to make that request digitized and available on Open Vault (rights permitting).  Think of it as a sponsorship of the preservation of the asset as well as helping to pay to make it accessible for everyone on the internet.

Improved Features
Even features that worked well on the older version of the Open Vault website have been given slight upgrades. You should notice improved browser compatibility, even on mobile devices. The video player is improved and navigating longer length media is easier. If a transcript exists for a video file and you jump to a specific point in the video, the transcript should automatically move there as well.

As with any website re-launch, there are still some bugs the development team is hard at work on so if any functionality is missing or a link is broken, rest assured we’re hard at work trying to resolve those issues quickly. Thank you for your patience.

Please feel free to direct any comments or questions to openvault[at]wgbh[dot]org.

Thank you for taking the time to use Open Vault and we look forward to bringing additional access to users in the future.

-WGBH Media Library and Archives