How the American Library Association Used Warpwire to Enhance Their Conference Media
Updated May 16, 2024
Read Time: 3 min
by Cadmium
The Challenge: Developing a strategy for evolving media types in a unified, feature-rich platform
The American Library Association (ALA) is the world’s oldest and largest library association, with a mission “to provide leadership for the development, promotion and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.” ALA’s Conference Services team has been leveraging Cadmium’s suite of products to manage the production and upload of their audio recordings since 2013. Due to the laborious editing process, the average turnaround time for on-demand viewing was up to 3-5 weeks.
During the COVID shutdown, ALA had to convert their Annual Conference to a fully livestreamed format. These live streams were initially hosted on 3rd party streaming platforms, downloaded after the session, and edited by the Cadmium team before being uploaded for on-demand viewing that took around 3-5 days.
ALA’s transition to a hybrid format for their Annual conference presented several challenges due to some sessions being live streamed and hosted on Cadmium’s Warpwire Live streaming platform, while others were pre-recorded or locally recorded in breakout rooms. As a result, sessions were made available to attendees on different timelines due to involvement by several parties (Cadmium, ALA, A/V partner), with various processes to upload and link the files in Cadmium.
ALA wanted a solution that would empower them to:
- Manage various video assets across multiple parties. ALA wanted to find a solution that would enable them to easily manage their video assets that were spread across different parties.
- Generate faster turnaround of all their content. ALA wanted to optimize their on-demand live streaming process so viewers can access their video content faster than 3-5 weeks.
- Improve the accuracy of closed captioning. With ALA’s emphasis on accessibility, they wanted a solution that would provide accurate closed captioning.
The Solution: An integrated feature-rich platform with all recorded content in one “library”
The team at ALA chose Warpwire to host both their live streamed sessions as well as their other recorded sessions. By doing so, they were granted access to a single Warpwire media “library” that would allow them to upload their own recorded sessions, not just during that event, but year-round.
And while Warpwire has been a video delivery platform for leading enterprise and educational institutions since 2013, the integration of Warpwire On-Demand with the newly developed Warpwire Live streaming service was first on display at ALA’s 2023 Annual Conference.
All live streamed recordings were quickly rendered on Warpwire Live for on-demand video consumption and would drop into ALA’s on-demand library where they could directly review and edit the recordings within hours. Warpwire offers a simple “trim tool” to clip the sessions to start and end precisely. The Cadmium team performed those edits while the ALA team focused on making captioning edits.
After thoroughly testing Warpwire Live’s automated captions, ALA decided to go with Warpwire to provide captions for their live viewers based on speed and accuracy. Human captioning was still provided onstage and via a Streamtext link in the Audience Response System (ARS) for each session.
ALA was able to have the best of both worlds, with the most exciting improvement being the ease of immediately editing the captions. Any ALA team member with access could join the library, select a session, watch a video alongside a transcription editor, and save changes directly to the captions in real time.
“We were thrilled with the convenience of Warpwire for correcting captions. While Warpwire’s auto-generated captions had a high level of accuracy, we prioritized correcting names and non-English words and appreciated how easy the platform made the process." - Kristin Lahurd, Deputy Director, Conference Content and Engagement
The Result: A more efficient and effective event
The 2023 ALA Annual Conference set the new standard for what can be accomplished in a live streamed event requiring direct, immediate management of recorded content.
Warpwire’s integrated process enabled ALA to:
- Unify disconnected video assets. Warpwire On-Demand library gave ALA access to many other features such as the ability to bulk download media, generate links, embed videos, and even edit the preview thumbnail that shows when viewers open each video.
- Decrease turnaround time from 3-5 days to 3-5 hours. Warpwire’s integrated process dramatically improved ALA’s turnaround time for live streaming, editing, and providing accurate captions for each session from 3-5 days to 3-5 hours.
- Optimize caption accuracy and speed. To speed up caption edits, ALA staff could watch videos at 1.25x or 1.5x speed during quick audits of non-technical sessions. For segments with lots of names or technical terms, the ALA team could pause the video and carefully add captions when needed.
“Our experience with Warpwire and the Cadmium team greatly improved the product we delivered to our attendees. Beyond an effective and efficient platform, we were impressed with and grateful for the knowledge and responsiveness of our Cadmium project managers. We would not hesitate to use Warpwire again.”
– Kristin Lahurd, Deputy Director, Conference Content and Engagement
About The American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is the foremost national organization providing resources to inspire library and information professionals to transform their communities through essential programs and services. For more than 140 years, the ALA has been the trusted voice for academic, public, school, government and special libraries, advocating for the profession and the library’s role in enhancing learning and ensuring access to information for all. For more information, visit ala.org.