Digital Audio Archiving in Community Radios of Kerala

Abstract

Sound archives are increasingly being viewed as tokens of cultural heritage from bygone eras. Novel techniques are explored for preserving and archiving these valuable records. The strong ethnical ties of community radio stations with the local community make it imperative to archive their audio contents as these are entwined with the knowledge, arts, culture and languages of indigenous people. This is particularly important because societies are fast embracing a single global culture and in the course, they lose their unique local traditions, dialects and arts. A scientific approach to archiving community radio contents is thus a social necessity to ensure people‟s easy access to these knowledge sources and convenient retrieval of information required. Archiving audio files as a responsibility to posterity is promoted by international agencies such as UNESCO. They propagate cost effective methods such as use of free and open source software for digitizing and archiving audio contents in community radio stations, fit to be emulated by similar organisations. This case study details the archiving practices of various community radio stations in Kerala.