The department of data science in the college of information at the university of north texas will enhance access to and public engagement with oral history collections through the development of…

The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded the University of North Texas $980,792 on September 1, 2026, under the National Leadership Grants program (CFDA 45.312) to develop Oral-AI, a responsible and privacy-aware framework for enhancing public access to and engagement with oral history collections through artificial intelligence.

The Department of Data Science in the College of Information will evaluate the limitations of emerging multimodal AI systems in oral history contexts and create a structured benchmark dataset and modular, open-source framework supporting cross-modal retrieval, evidence-grounded question answering, and narrative summarization while preserving archival integrity. The project centers ethical stewardship and human-centered design to expand meaningful public access to oral histories nationwide.

The award period runs through August 31, 2029, with performance based in Denton, Texas. The National Leadership Grants program supports projects addressing critical needs of the museum and library fields with potential to generate widely used, adapted, or replicated models, tools, research findings, services, practices, and alliances that advance the professions and strengthen services for the American public.

The department of data science in the college of information at the university of north texas will enhance access to and public engagement with oral history collections through the development of oral-artificial intelligence (AI), a responsible and privacy aware framework for navigating multimodal oral digital archives. This project will evaluate the limitations of emerging multimodal AI systems in oral history contexts and develop a structured benchmark dataset and modular, open-source framework that supports cross-modal retrieval, evidence-grounded question answering, and narrative summarization while preserving archival integrity. By centering ethical stewardship and human-centered design, oral-AI hopes to expand meaningful public access to oral histories nationwide.