2020 IASA - FIAT/IFTA Joint Conference

In these times in which the general audience believes that everything is available online, document collections are a reminder of the opposite: that not everything is–or can be–online, at least not yet. And even if it were, if the audience does not know it, it is as if it did not exist.

Preservation of sound document heritage goes well beyond access to them, high-resolution digitization, or its use by specialized users. For over a decade, the Fonoteca Nacional (National Sound Archive of Mexico), via its Promotion and Communication Department, has attempted to go beyond this type of preservation by promoting cultural practices based on collaboration between the institution and the community, so that the latter can own and re-signify the heritage preserved by the institution.

New communication technologies give users access to sound documents, but it is necessary to provide tools and practices that enable users to appropriate this heritage and thus generate new meanings that link them to their context. For example, the Mapa Sonoro de México (Sound Map of Mexico)–a digital platform by the National Sound Archive–has become a tool for social cohesion and historiographic queries: thanks to the fact it allows any person with a smart phone become a sound recorder who can enrich the Map. Thus, it becomes a living archive for the diverse Mexican sounds. The project–that has surpassed 70 thousand users in the past three years–completely transcends the idea of access and, via interaction, portrays Mexican society enabling to explore its present and past diversity.

The lecture will detail how this initiative, along with the National Sound Library Newtwork (Red Nacional de Audiotecas), Traveling Sound Archive (Fonoteca Itinerante), Musiteca, monthly events calendar, exhibits, Sonic Garden (Jardín Sonoro) and radio productions, enable us to go beyond access. How a dialectic relation between sound heritage and sound document heritage is created, ensuring the effective preservation of documents.