Audio Archives Anyone?
Looking at the audio archives at Radio Nepal, I really wondered if anyone cares. The Director General was pleading with us to help him save this cultural heritage that contains material dating back to the mid 1960’s (and it would appear started to rot shortly thereafter…).
He himself had tried to get UNESCO interested but did not succeed. One reason might have been not knowing how to apply for funding.
I am afraid things don’t look much different in other parts of the world. I can still remember hearing Swedish prime minister Olof Palme speaking in his wonderful east-baltic German he learned as a child with his grand parents in Latvia. The tape belonged to one of my colleagues at the German department of Radio Sweden.
Would you be able to get hold of this historic document if you were interested in it? Probably not, as it was never archived properly, never digitized properly, never categorized properly. My colleague decided on his own initiative to preserve it for posterity. Even though he is now retired, he still has a copy to this day.
Pictures courtesy Helmut Osang.