Abstract

What helps researchers listen in deep and engaged ways to sound recordings that are delivered on the Web? This paper considers how visual aspects of Web-based archives for poetry recordings can enhance the listening experience for users by providing more context and clarification that can help users better understand and use the recordings. Drawing from studies in a variety of disciplines that demonstrate that much of our learning is multimodal, the SpokenWeb project in Montreal, Canada is using digitized live recordings of a Montreal poetry reading series from 1965-1972, featuring performances by major North American poets to investigate the features that will be the most
conducive to scholarly engagement with recorded poetry recitation and performance. Visual features such as tethering audio playback with a written transcript, sound visualization and including videos and images are discussed as means to enhance the listening experience in audio archives. While visual features will be discussed from the perspective of the SpokenWeb poetry project, many of the issues and recommendations will apply more broadly to audio archives in general, including those with both spoken word and musical content.