Hawkesbury histories to be transcribed and you can help

6 August 2021

Volunteers in the Hawkesbury now have the chance to participate in a special project called Amplify. Hawkesbury Library Service is joining the Amplify project to transcribe our oral history collections. Oral histories are often known as ‘the first kind of history’. They are the sharing of knowledge, experience and memory, by word of mouth. They can take many forms such as myths, folklore and storytelling or formal interviews.

Amplify https://amplify.sl.nsw.gov.au is a State Library of NSW platform that delivers digitised audio collections from cultural institutions across NSW. The sound file is paired with machine-generated transcripts that can then be corrected online by volunteers. Amplify hosts audio collections from a variety of participating public libraries as well as the Australian War Memorial.

A selection of our digitised oral history collection will be temporarily placed on the platform in the coming months, along with a copy of the interview, as interpreted by a machine.

This is where you can get involved! Volunteers from the Hawkesbury and all over Australia can assist by listening to the interviews and then correcting the transcription to help make them more accessible. It is a great way for researchers, volunteers, and the public to get ‘hands-on’ with cultural heritage and listen in depth to the stories of NSW and Australian history.

Our interviews date from the mid-1980s to the present and cover a wide range of Hawkesbury community members who have been interested in sharing their stories.

Hawkesbury Library Service is also interested in hearing from more community members in the Hawkesbury who have a story to tell or who are interested in helping out with the project.

For any questions about Amplify or the Oral History Project, please contact the Local History Librarian at history@hawkesbury.nsw.gov.au or 02 4560 4466.​