How will we remember the history and the sound of today’s community radios in the future, and what in particular will we remember about them? How are free radio stations recording and documenting their programmes?

The content being created by free radio stations across Europe is often only partially or intermittently documented and archived, and only a small percentage of these broadcasts is available online as podcast.

We collected best practices of archiving methods, asked radio activists to present their online tools or other software systems which has been developed to save audio content.

Please feel free to listen and spread the audio recordings of the presentations:

Radio Archiving Practice. Remediating Sonic Memories  by Dagmar Brunow, Universität Växjö, Sweden

LARM Audio Research Archive – Opening radio heritage for research use  by Jacob Kreutzfeldt, University of Copenhagen

Re-sounding feminist radio: using radio archives as transnational connectors  by Caroline Mitchell, University of Sunderland, UK

Bold strides or tentative steps? How community media share and archive content online  by Joost van Beek & Kate Coyer, Central European University Budapest, Hungary

Radio Urban FM, Prishtina, Kosovo  by Berat Gashi, Radio Urban FM, Prishtina, Kosovo

30 years rolled by: Archiving physical archives of oldest European non-commercial student radio station Radio Študent Ljubljana  by Marko Doles & Andraž Magajna, MTLRŠ, Ljubljana, Slovenia

From manual analogical recording to Radioco, our Free Software automatic digital archiving of live broadcasting system at CUAC FM  by Jose Maria Casanova, Fernando Souto & Isabel Lema Blanco, CUAC FM, A Coruña, Spain

Our current archiving method  by Daniele Fisichella & Amy Nomvula Smith, Future Radio, Norwich, UK

Programme calendar as archive: calcms  by Milan Chrobok, Pi Radio, Berlin, Germany

UVisualize! – Visualisation tool for open archives  by Ingo Leindecker, Radio FRO, Linz, Austria

Archiving at Frequence Sille since 2003  by Frank Pohu and Fréquence Sillé, Sillé le Guillaume, France

Taxonomie der sonoren Ordnung  an artistic performance by Lale Rodgarkia-Dara & Karl Schönswetter, Vienna, Austria

Preserving audio memories – A discussion about the prospects and demands of free radio archives  a round table discussion with Ingo Leindecker from the Cultural Broadcasting Archive (Austria), Ralf Wendt from Radio CORAX (Germany), Dagmar Brunow from the Universität Växjö (Sweden), and Joost van Beek from Central European University (Hungary)

Please find some visual impressions and detailed informations on the conference on our conference website.

5th of June 2015

The conference is free of charge. There will be German and English translation. We ask for registration till end of May. If you are interested to join the conference and need further information, please don´t hesitate to contact us: info@livingarchives.eu

Keynotes

Dagmar Brunow, Universität Växjö, Schweden:

“Radio Archiving Practice. Remediating Sonic Memories”

Jacob Kreutzfeldt, University of Copenhagen, Denmark:

“LARM Audio Research Archive – Opening radio heritage for research use”

Caroline Mitchell, University of Sunderland, UK:

“Re-sounding feminist radio: using radio archives as transnational connectors”

Kate Coyer and Joost van Beek, Central European University Budapest, Hungary:

“Study on Archiving in European Community Media”

Ingo Leindecker, cba.fro.at and Radio FRO, Austria: “UVisualize! – Visualisation tool for open archives”

Best Practice Presentations

1) Berat Gashi: Radio Urban FM, Prishtina, Kosovo

2) Marko Doles and Andraž Magajna: “30 years rolled by: Archiving physical archives of oldest European non-commercial student radio station Radio Študent Ljubljana”

3) Jose Maria Casanova and Fernando Souto, Community Radio of A Coruña: “From manual analogical recording to Radioco, our Free Software automatic digital archiving of live broadcasting system at CUAC FM”

4) Daniele Fisichella: Future Radio (Norwich, UK): “Current archiving methods at Future Radio”

5) Franck Pohu (Sillé le Guillaume), France: “Archiving at Frequence Sille since 2003″

6) Albert Noguer & Jean-Paul Gambier, Federación de las Radios Asociativas no Comerciales del Languedoc-Roussillon (FRANC-LR), France: “Digitalisation, indexing and publication of the archives of the Community Radios in Languedoc-Roussillon”

Workshop

Jose M. Casanova, Community Radio of A Coruña, Spain:

“How to setup your internet streaming to record and archive your audio streams.”

Round Table Discussion

“Open Community Radio Archives of the future”

Radio Programme

We provide a monthly radio show about community archiving on the Cultural Broadcasting Archive: http://cba.fro.at/series/captcha-documentations-series. During the conference we´ll provide a special programme with interviews and news from the conference via live stream:

Wednesday, 3rd June, 3.10 pm – 5 pm

Thursday, 4th June, 3.10 pm – 6 pm

Friday, 5th June, 3.10 pm – 4 pm

The main questions were and are “What is worth archiving?”, “What is worth republishing?”, “How do we edit material to rebroadcast it or to archive it?”, “Which innovative ways do people use to connect the content of an online archive with further websites and other archives?”.

Inspired by the various questions that arose, we developed a workshop to go more into detail and to think about new ways and innovative alternatives to publish and share content. Beyond that we focused on the possibilities of transferring the knowhow about innovative practices to people who use audio-visual archives and/or radio archives.

Participants joined from Radio Student in Ljubljana, Central European University in Budapest, Radio FRO in Linz and Radio CORAX in Halle.

Das Oral History Archiv “wendefokus.de” von Radio CORAX über die Zeit vor und um 1989 ist online: Das freie Radio in Halle, Radio Corax, fragte über Monate in zumeist sehr per­sön­li­chen Gesprä­chen nach der Lebens­si­tua­tion und der Vor­stel­lung von not­wen­di­ger Ver­än­de­rung der Ver­hält­nisse in der DDR. Zeit­zeu­gen und Zeit­zeu­gin­nen berich­ten über das Jahr 1989, erzäh­len, wie sie die Zeit zwi­schen Mau­er­fall und “Wie­der­ver­ei­ni­gung” erlebt haben. Sie erzäh­len von Bür­gern, für die die alten Gesetze nicht mehr und die neuen noch nicht gal­ten, von Frei­räu­men, die auch wie­der ver­lo­ren gegan­gen sind, vom Geist eines refor­mier­ba­ren DDR-Sozialismus, von der Kluft zwi­schen indi­vi­du­el­ler Erfah­rung und kol­lek­ti­ver Erin­ne­rung an die Zeit. Neben heute bekann­ten Per­sön­lich­kei­ten Hal­les fin­den auch Per­so­nen Gehör, die sonst wenig zu Wort kom­men und den­noch eini­ges zu erzäh­len haben. Ergänzt wer­den die hier nun ver­öf­fent­lich­ten Gesprä­che durch Ana­ly­sen und Hintergrundberichte.

Press/Presseecho:

FREITAG, 28.10.2014, Wahre Demokratie von Michael Suckow

NEUES DEUTSCHLAND, 30.10.2014, Erinnerung und Unbehagen. Radio Corax hat Interviews online gestellt, in denen Zeitzeugen über das Ende der DDR reflektieren von Ralf Hutter

Kraftfuttermischwerk.de, 7.10.2014, Über 100 Interviews: Radio Corax’ Wendefokus – Persönliche Blicke auf den Herbst ’89

Hallesche Störung, Wendefokus geht online

Conference programme (Location: Wissensturm)

6^th September 2014

9:30 AM

Registration and breakfast (with friendly support by Open Commons Region Linz)

10:00 AM

Welcome and introduction

10:30 AM

Brave new world! Challenges and strategies of online archives and repositories (Maria Seissl, Head of the Service Department for Libraries and Archives at the University Vienna)

11:30 AM

Workshops

12:30 AM

Workshops

1:30 PM

Lunch break

2:30 PM

“Preserving cultural heritage in the digital information society” – Panel discussion about the actual practices of archives, media centers and libraries with Gerhard Baumgartner (Dokumentationsarchiv des österr. Widerstands), Julia Fallon (Stiftung Europeana), Max Kaiser (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) and Hermann Lewetz (Österreichische Mediathek). Moderation: Anna Masoner (ORF Ö1)

7^th September 2014:

10:00 AM

Registration and brunch

10:30 AM

A National Library for the 21st Century – Content and services in The Digital Library (Roger Jøsevold,  Nationalbibliothek  Norway, Oslo)

11:15 AM

Copyright and cultural heritage – a construct between reality and fiction (Paul Klimpel, iRights Lab Kultur. Berlin)

12:00 AM

Memory institutions, online archives and copyright (Felix Trumpke, OLG Frankfurt/Main)

12:45 PM

Lunch break

1:45 PM

Mass-digitization and (extended) collective licensing: the way forward? (Stef van Gompel, Institute for Information Law, Amsterdam)

2:30 PM

Electronic Reading Terminals – ECJ Case TU Darmstadt vs. Eugen Ulmer in its European Context (Diana Ettig, Hogan Lovells, Frankfurt/Main)

3:30 PM

“New framework conditions for the accessibility of cultural heritage” – Panel discussion about the legal framework conditions and the possibility of their improvement in the digital information society with Diana Ettig (Hogan Lovells, Frankfurt/Main), Stef van Gompel (Institute for Information Law, Amsterdam), Roger Jøsevold (Nationalbibliothek Norway, Oslo), Paul Klimpel (iRights Lab Kultur, Berlin) and Felix Trumpke (Legal intern at OLG Frankfurt/Main)

Moderation: Leonhard Dobusch (Professor for organisational theory, FU Berlin)

You can follow the talks and panel discussions online on http://www.archivia.at/live-streaming/

For more information please visit http://www.archivia.at/?lang=en

Most of all, the discussion brought home how divergent the capacities of different stations are, and how ‘best practice’ recommendations must be tailored to existing possibilities, however modest. Working on a non-profit basis with mostly volunteers, community media have to grapple with particularly pronounced choices in how, what and where to archive. In this context, attendees discussed the tension between the practical advantages and strategic disadvantages of using third-party online services like Soundcloud, Mixcloud and Vimeo.

Such services provide easy-to-use, low-cost ways to upload and share materials, which can function as convenient shortcuts when the time, cost and know-how required for archive and website design, volunteer training and hosting packages are in scarce supply. They also provide low-threshold statistical info and sharing options. Their limited categorization options are geared for sharing rather than archiving purposes, however. Perhaps most importantly, relying on such services means a station becomes dependent on an external, commercial party for the online preservation and availability of its programs as well as the living archives built around them, from tags to audience interactions. The long-term existence of these services is not guaranteed, as MySpace has demonstrated, and instead of being able to freely develop new archive functions or interfaces, a station becomes in part reliant on corporate development choices beyond its control.

Nevertheless, their attraction for especially small community stations is self-evident, and their use fits within a broader trend of even much larger organizations delegating functions like search and mapping on their websites to commercial third-party applications. Moreover, even if a station doesn’t use them officially, individual program makers will, potentially creating diasporas of content. The experience of one of the stations attending the small discussion therefore underlined the need to make consistent choices about what to upload where, use embedding options to optimize the accessibility of programs, and present clear information to website visitors.

You can find the photo documentation of the Civilmedia14 UnConference here.

Focus on European projects

In 2012, the ARCHIVIA conference already focused extensively on the challenges of digitizing archives, and the impact of digitalization on the legal questions surrounding archive material. This year, Archivia 2014 will in particular highlight examples of current and past online archiving projects from around Europe, what can be learnt from these experiences, and what best practices can be identified.

Invitation for participation

ARCHIVIA 2014 invites private and public libraries, museums and archives from all over Europe to take part. Come share your ideas and experiences on how online archives can deal with the challenges at hand, present your plans and projects, and discuss possible solutions and scenarios going forward! The conference will address both a professional audience and the broader, interested public.

Online archives for cultural diversity in Europe!

The conference aims to increase public awareness of the social relevance of digital online platforms in Europe. In our view, online archives will be a key tool for the dissemination, preservation and promotion of the diverse cultural heritage of Europe in the future.

Submissions

Proposals for lectures or workshops, containing a title and an abstract of no more than 250 words, should be submitted in English or German (preferably as PDF file) at http://www.archivia.at/?lang=en. The submission deadline is 31 July 2014. For more information, contact Dr. Joachim Losehand, office@archiva.at.

In this show you will hear some acustic impressions from Dublin, eg. the visit of the community radio NearFM, whose founder Jack Byrne (NearMedia) reports about the history of the station. Gavin Byrne (NearMedia) tells us how NearFM is archiving their shows and introduce us in the online podcasting system.

Programme of the Seminar “What is worth Archiving?”

09.30am – Registration with tea/coffee

10.00 – Chair of the event Ciaran Murray welcomes attendees and introduces the opening address from Kate Coyer from the Central European University in Budapest

10.15 – Continuing to build a digital repository for Ireland and ways of prioritising material – Sandra Collins from the Digital Repository of Ireland

10.30 – Connemara Community Radio Archive – Grainne O’Malley

10.45 – The BAI Archive Scheme – what it is, what it does, how it can apply to you? Elizabeth Farrelly

11.00 – The Importance of Local – Jack Byrne of the Near Media Co-Op

11.15 – Question & Answers, audience & panel.

11.35 – Break for coffee

11.45 – Round table facilitations for comment feedback on what has been discussed so far

12.15 – Break

12.30 – Workshops – Choice of 1) Podcasting with Gavin Byrne or 2) How Machines Find Us with Dave Knox

13.15 – Reconvene for compilation of comments/feedback/ review – this will form a report on the mornings activities for the CAPTCHA EU Culture Initiative

13.30 – Lunch (served in the bar, first floor of Teachers Club)

Speakers of the Seminar “What is worth Archiving”

• Chaired by Ciaran Murray, Near Media Co-Op Overall Coordinator
• Jack Byrne, former chairperson, Near Media Co-op and former President, AMARC Europe (European association of community media broadcasters)
• Kate Coyer is the Executive Director of Central European University’s Centre for Media and Communication Studies in the School of Public Policy.
• Dr Sandra Collins is the Director of the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI).
• Elizabeth Farrelly – Broadcasting Authority of Ireland
• Grainne O’Malley – Station Manager, Connemara Community Radio
• Gavin Byrne – fulltime IT coordinator with Near Media Co-Op
• David Knox – Media Scientist

Workshops of the Seminar “What is worth Archiving?”

1. Podcasting by Gavin Byrne
Gavin Byrne guided us through a ‘step by step guide to podcasting’ via WordPress. From installing a client to saving the file as mp3, uploading the audio, loading content such as text and visuals and tagging. This was a comprehensive guide in how to make a successful podcast. Gavin also covered audio hosting services soundcloud and mixcloud. Near FM have an extensive library of podcast material available at www.nearpodcast.org

2. How do Machine’s find us by David Knox
This workshop looked at how users find information on the internet, how they search and in turn how search engines work. It highlighted how and why search engines considering data (text/sound/video files etc) “good” or “worthy” and how they weigh the validity of this data. It also looked at how a user will submit data to a website so that it is found.

50 people attended the event from 26 different Irish and European organisations like community radios and TVs, archives, universities, libraries, museums and others.

A significant part of the research, however, will focus on processes and practices as well as products. How have successful models of functioning archives been realized? The Center is conducting interviews with people who have been directly involved with planning or building online archives, and with community media volunteers who work with them on a day-to-day basis as producers, editors or administrators. How do they organize the archive? Who plays what role in the archiving work flow? What training, guidance, moderation or archiving policies are needed? This way, we want to identify and evaluate different models of planning, action and collaboration. Specific attention will be paid to the question of how to develop archiving platforms and formats in sustainable ways, avoiding the pitfalls of project- and funding-dependent temporary initiatives, and taking into account the volunteer-based nature of community media.

In order to evaluate the success of community media archiving models and the needs they need to meet, the Center will conduct survey research to recruit feedback from community media viewers and listeners as well as those actively involved themselves. What are their expectations from community media streams, downloads and archives? How do they use and interact with the sites, and how do they experience the ease of design and navigation of the site or sites they visit? What are their frustrations, and what would they still like to see?

All research will be practice-oriented, tailored to the needs of community media practitioners and activists, and will be driven by the information needs that emerge during the workshops that are at the heart of the project. The research should be able to identify the specific priorities in access, process and presentation that apply to community media. It aims to arrive at recommendations that can inform the work of community media organizations which are planning to launch an online archive, or expand or review the archives they already run, as well as individual community media producers.

The first meeting of the project partners within CAPTCHA addresses the essential questions to open multimedia archives. What are the specific circumstances of the “open knowledge” sector to archive productions? How can free media actors and artists publish their contents to gain public visibility? Which social practices of multimedia actors should be displayed and investigated by the CAPTCHA research? The partners develop the thread for a qualitative questionnaire. The questionnaire will be the base for the research conducted by Kate Coyer and Joost van Beek in 2014.