Radio Archives in European Community Media
Call for Participation, 8th December 2014
"Radio Archives in European Community Media"
International Conference on Open Radio Archives
June 4–6, 2015
Radio CORAX, Halle/Saale (Germany)
Community media across Europe face many of the same challenges in creating and managing archives of broadcast content. Every minute, they produce and broadcast an enormous amount of programming . But how is this content preserved and used
after it’s broadcast? Most community broadcasters have created their own methodologies for preserving and cataloguing their programs: writing their own algorithms, adapting software to their needs, or developing complex file structures on
hard disks, servers and cloud services. To make past broadcasting accessible to the public, some stations created systems to automatically upload programmes to their website or developed online archives which can be browsed or searched by program,
subject or tag; others make use of collaborative archiving platforms like the Cultural Broadcasting Archive, or administer different "satellite" websites on specific subjects or aimed at specific communities.
With the conference „Radio Archives in European Community Media“ we want to encourage people involved in community media to present current broadcast and multi-media archiving practices at their stations and to generate ideas for an institutional structure for European community radio archives.
Present and share your infrastructure solutions: At the conference we would like to explore and exchange different ways in which community media can preserve, use and share broadcast content. What tools and infrastructures to archive audiovisual material are best suited for community media? Which formats did your station find or create to present audiovisual content online? Which innovative techniques or tools did you develop or are you still looking for?
Archiving methods and archiving culture: A major challenge in building community media archives is how to cultivate archiving as an essential part of radio making. Many programme makers are focused foremost on their "on air" show. What are the best ways to engage them in archiving their programs and sharing them with online listeners? Who undertakes what task: uploading programmes, adding descriptions and tags, promoting them on social media? Are programs uploaded whole or split into specific items, with or without music, and how is the material edited?
The responsibility to archive: How can community archives integrate multilingualism? How can online archiving support programme exchange within Europe? What importance do analogue, physical archives have in the digital age, and how can community media secure and digitize them? How can community media archives unlock historical material about community life and social movements in user-friendly ways? Not least, we encourage proposals dealing with the question of copyright regulations and the role of open software and open knowledge.
