Distant Listening: Using Python and Apps Scripts to Text Mine and Tag Oral History Collections

This article presents a case study for creating subject tags utilizing transcription data across entire oral history collections, adapting Franco Moretti’s distant reading approach to narrative audio material. Designed for oral history project managers, the workflow empowers student workers to generate, modify, and expand subject tags during transcription editing, thereby enhancing the overall accuracy and discoverability of the collection. The paper details the workflow, surveys challenges the process addresses, shares experiences of transcribers, and examines the limitations of data-driven, human-edited tagging.