World Day for Audiovisual Heritage - podcast from Radio Sonder Grense on 27 October #wdavh2015

The following package was compiled by the afternoon team of Radio Sonder Grense on Middag op.

Karen du Toit, Afrikaans archivist in the SABC Radio Archive, have selected one of the soundtracks for today. Jan Beukes, one of the first African broadcasters in 1937 on the African service, are relaying anecdotes about the first African broadcasts on radio. It was recorded on October 18, 1955. The soundtrack was originally recorded on acetate record and was digitized on a CD by a sound engineer. Unfortunately, we have many formats in the Archives which are perishing because we are not digitizing fast enough. It is a global problem in all audiovisual archives! "

The podcast translated from Afrikaans:

"The theme for the celebration of this year World Day for Audiovisual Heritage 2015" Archives in Danger - Protecting the world's identities! "

SABC Media Libraries are part of archives worldwide highlighting the importance of preserving our audiovisual heritage in the SABC Radio archives. Our audiovisual heritage do not only allow us to look and listen with apperciation to our audio-visual collections, but what is more important, it also shows us who we are!

The Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Association (CCAAA) encourage everyone to participate in the campaign to protect man's AV heritage. The world's audiovisual heritage of sound recordings and moving images are extremely vulnerable due to factors ranging from neglect, natural decay due to technological obsolescence, as well as deliberate destruction.

Accordingly, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) made it part of its mission to create public awareness with the the Global Audiovisual Heritage celebrations annually.

All the world's audiovisual heritage is endangered. Therefore, the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage and the Memory of the World program are the two most important actions identified by UNESCO to help preserve this heritage! The task is on professionals in conservation to help preserve this heritage for future generations, despite the many technical, political, social, financial and other factors that threaten AV survival.

UNESCO encourages everyone to share in the celebrations on October 27 by putting the emphasis on their precious collections to ensure that present and future generations will still be able to enjoy our shared audiovisual heritage. "