The NUI Maynooth Ken Saro-Wiwa Audio Archive: Creating an Open Access Archive in

Soundcloud

Helen Fallon, NUI Maynooth & Dr Anne O’Brien, Kairos Communications

Helen.b.fallon@nuim.ie, anneobrien@kairoscomms.ie

Background

• November 2011 – Donation of 28 letters and 27 poems written by

Ken Saro-Wiwa to the Library at NUI Maynooth• November 2013– Publication of “Silence Would be Treason: Last

Writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa” edited by Íde Corley, Helen Fallon & Laurence Cox

– Launch of “Ken Saro-Wiwa Audio Archive” produced by NUI Maynooth Library and Kairos Communications

Creating the Ken Saro-Wiwa Audio Archive

• Where did I come in?

• Through the creativity of librarians• Through a separate filming project for RTE • Through an infectious curiosity for a story that really

captures the imagination

What is the audio archive?

• Series of recorded interviews• Recorded on location – Rossport• From the comfort (and quiet) of Majella’s

home, or in a car• In a radio studio

Why an Audio Archive?

• Audio takes you beyond written accounts of the era• It feels like you are part of the story because you are

hearing first hand accounts in the voices of the protagonists

• Audio recording played to the strength of people who are very articulate orally but couldn’t give the time to writing

• It allowed the story to be told in detail but in an expedient way

• Video production – Delta Force – prohibitively expensive

What do you need to create an audio archive

• Good story well told (finding the story was easy)

• Recording the story doesn’t have to be complicated

• Read and think a little about doing interviews• Record everything and edit afterwards –

better looking at it than looking for it

Home for the Audio Archive

• SoundCloud• www.soundcloud.com• World’s leading audio cloud-

based platform for creating and sharing sound files “The twitter of music”

SoundCloud Features• Compatible with all major

browsers and mobile devices - iOS and Android

• Over 250 million users• All major audio file

formats supported• 2 hours recording time

available free of charge• Less than a hundred

dollars a year for unlimited space

Listener statistics – geographical & most frequently played

• Users can post comments, like, repost and share tracks

• User created tags• Images• Link from library website

via “Electronic Resources” – direct embedding of soundCloud tracks

Libraries using SoundCloud

• University of Washington Libraries – archival recordings from Collections – https://souncloud/com/uwlibaries

• New England Conservatory– https://soundcloud.com/necmusic

• The British Library– https://soundcloud.com/the-british-library

Audio-Archive Details

• Ken Saro-Wiwa Audio Archivehttp://library.nuim.ie/electronic-resources/ken-saro-wiwa-audio-archive

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