UNESCO is digitizing Radio Mogadishu's tape recordings
In Zambia, the same project is moving National Broadcasting Corporation film and tape onto formats that later equipment can still read.
In this story
- UNESCO is digitizing about 45,000 analog tapes at Radio Mogadishu.
- The reels hold news, speeches, entertainment, and music from Somalia.
- The Japanese Funds-in-Trust supports the preservation project.
- The Memory of the World program began in 1992 and follows the 2015 documentary-heritage recommendation.
UNESCO's Memory of the World program is digitizing about 45,000 analog tape recordings held by Radio Mogadishu, the organization said in its 20 October account. The page was written for World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, marked on 27 October under the theme "Your Window to the World."
Those Mogadishu reels hold everyday stories, local news, political speeches, entertainment programs, and music. UNESCO places the copying inside a project on the preservation and accessibility of documentary heritage. The Japanese Funds-in-Trust and Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology support that project.
A second strand covers holdings that disasters or decay could destroy. At the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation, UNESCO is marking the analog tapes and film most at risk and shifting them onto formats that later machines can still play. UNESCO names poor storage and obsolete formats as the reason those holdings could be lost for good.
UNESCO set up the Memory of the World program in 1992. The 2015 Recommendation on the Preservation of, and Access to, Documentary Heritage Including in Digital Form is the text that guides it.