Unlocking the archives
Linda Barwick
Sydney Conservatorium of MusicThe University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia[linda.barwick@sydney.edu.au]

Nick Thieberger
School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne,
Parkville, Vic 3010, Australia[thien@unimelb.edu.au]

Abstract
The popular expression ‘locked in the archive’ suggests that items are impossible to find and access once they arearchived. Benefiting from new technologies, digital language and music archives nowadays provide an increasing
number of records online in and about the world’s small languages. Just six of these archives list between them over
31,000 items, representing something like 2,300 languages. We can certainly do better at making records more widely
available—especially records from small, marginalised and sometimes isolated communities—but how do we build
pathways for re-use? We discuss the practice of the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered
Cultures (PARADISEC) through the rubric provided by the FAIR principles. Building resources for learning andteaching language, history and culture, revitalising local performance traditions or reinforcing social identity throughbroadcasting are all possible pathways for future re-use of archival material. Ultimately, it is up to community members
to decide on what they will do with archival materials once they have access; and it is up to language archives to listen
and do our best to keep the pathways open to enable that.

PARADISEC

are archived. In fact, digital language and musicarchives nowadays provide an increasing number ofrecords online in and about the world’s small languages.
Just six of these archives list between them over 31,000
items, representing something like 2,300 languages.
Digital language archives 21 of the world’s small 22
languages represent a novel infrastructure that provides
citability of primary research materials, thus building arobust methodology that allows for verification ofanalytical claims made in research. Language
documentation (cf Gippert et al 2006, Thieberger 2016),
the digital successor to language description,emphasises creating permanent records of linguistic
performance that can serve a range of multi-disciplinary
uses. At the same time, because ethnographic (linguistic
or musicological) recordings are of heritage value to thepeople recorded or their families, there is great scope forengaging with communities by delivering accessible
records (Barwick 2004). For speakers of many
languages, there is no reflection of their traditions on theweb, so by lodging recordings with an online archive,
researchers can not only ensure the longevity of their

Archival media recordings can be of immense
significance, especially for small or marginalisedcommunities interesting in bolstering the future of theirlanguage and culture by using old recordings to supportand encourage learning by younger generations. In orderto provide access to such recordings we have beenbuilding the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital
Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) 20 since2003. PARADISEC has sought collections of analogue
tapes made in the region around Australia, typically by
linguists and musicologists, and worked to digitise andmake them available. We currently hold some 7,660
hours of digital audio records, most of which are openly
available to registered users and many of which
represent orphaned collections of analogue tapes,
previously unfindable by anyone but the researcher ortheir descendants. In this paper, we offer a reflection on
our experience of providing access to research records.
Our ability to create systems that take advantage of newtechnologies has meant that the archive continues its
online presence during periods of little or no funding.
We have automated access to the archive’s contents,
and allow depositors to assign access to specific users.

21

In 2017 there are 14 archives in the Digital Endangered
Languages and Musics Archives Network (DELAMAN), and60 listed in the Open Language Archives Community, of
which perhaps 22 have primary records from small languages.

The popular expression ‘locked in the archive’ suggeststhat items are impossible to find and access once they

22

20

We use the term ‘small languages’ (rather than ‘endangered
languages’) following Dorian 2014.

http://paradisec.org.au

135

FAIR language archiving

recordings, but also begin to redress the imbalance in
representation.

PARADISEC has been operating for fifteen years, so
our practices foreshadowed the FAIR principles recently
formalised by Force11.23 The acronym FAIR stands forthe four principles for metadata management – that
metadata should be (1) Findable; (2) Accessible; (3)Interoperable, and (4) Re-usable. If applied byresearchers and archives to both metadata and data,
these principles can go a long way to unlocking the data
in an archive. These four principles provide a usefulframework for discussing the ways in which we havebuilt the PARADISEC collection and made it
accessible. We will now show how each of these is
implemented by PARADISEC.

Given the scarce funding available for archiving
language records, digital language archives do anadmirable job of describing and curating theircollections. Most online archival systems have been
designed to make records much more generally findable
and accessible than in the past—though no doubt there
is work still to be done, especially for the benefit ofsmall,
marginalised
andsometimes
isolatedcommunities. Building pathways for interoperability
and re-use, however, remains a challenge.
In our experience, community members are appreciative
when they find records in their own languages, and weare keen to make that easier for them to do so. Some
recent testimonials include the following response fromE'ava Geita, a Koitabu speaker from PNG:

Findable PARADISECPARADISEC makes its data findable in several ways.
We have an online catalogue that exposes basic
metadata and can be searched on our site. 24 In
developing our cataloguing terms (metadata) we havebalanced making items findable against making ourmetadata too complex, and we think we have the rightmix. Stemming from our initial focus on legacy
recordings for which there was little metadata available,
our fairly minimalist approach has served us well bymaking it easier for potential depositors to complete
their deposits. The harder it is to fill out the metadata
forms, the less likely it is to be done. Of course, too
little metadata risks that some resources are not findable
via the catalog, so we do have some standard
requirements. We provide a simple spreadsheet for
depositors to fill out with minimal metadata to describe
their items, which can then be uploaded to populate thecatalog. Making it as easy as possible to enter
information into the catalogue provides an incentive fordepositors to complete this otherwise potentially tedioustask.

If only you witnessed and captured the reaction in me
going through the recordings at home! It is quite anamazing experience! From feeling of awe to emotion to
deep excitement! The feeling of knowing that yourlanguage has been documented or recorded in a
structured way, kept safely somewhere in the world,
hearing it spoken 50-60 years ago and by some people
you haven't seen but whose names you only hear inhistory, is quite incredible.
It is most heart-warming to know that it is possible tosustain the life of my language. Thank you once again
for the opportunity to listen to the records!
As I see it now, it is "US OR NEVER!" In about threeor four Koitabu villages, the observation is that people
in my peer group can understand in full but speak alittle. Generation after us cannot do both. I believe that
if we don’t teach ourselves now and pass on, thelanguage will be totally gone in the next 10 to 20 years.
As this user suggests, it is important to recognize thatrecordings of particular performances do not capture‘the language’ and cannot claim to do more thanprovide examples of language in use. Nevertheless, they
are priceless reflections of an individual’s linguistic
abilities, and, in the case of songs or oral poetry, capturesome of the local cultural aesthetic. While archives cancommit to preserving data and metadata, the only way
for languages and other cultural traditions to bepreserved is through active use in communities. Re-useof archival materials can support community-led
processes of maintenance and revival of language andother cultural traditions. For archives wishing tofacilitate re-use of the cultural material they have so
carefully preserved and curated, it is essential to: 1.
make sure that archive processes support re-use; 2.
maximise the chances of the recording being discoveredby potential users; and 3. make materials available insuitable formats for re-use.

Normal textual searches of language names, regions,countries and individual names are all provided for. Oneof the important metadata elements that we routinely
require is indication of the languages contained in the
resource, or that are the target of the documentation.
PARADISEC relies on depositors to include in theirdescriptions and titles key terms in small languages thatwill make the resources discoverable by speakers.
Where a world language other than English may be inwidespread use by speakers, some depositors include
bilingual descriptions in (for example) Tok Pisin,
Bahasa Indonesia or Chinese. Although we recognize
the value of such bilingual descriptions to making theresources more findable, PARADISEC doesn’t have theresources to routinely implement languages other thanEnglish in our metadata or catalogue interface.

136

23

https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples

24

http://catalog.paradisec.org.au

We have two feeds25 of catalogue information that are
harvested by a number of search engines, allowing users
to find our collections via different types of querying of
our catalogue by external services like the Open
Language Archives Community.26 This all makes ourcatalogue maximally locatable, via Australia’s
TROVE, 27 international catalogues like the Virtual
Language Observatory 28 or WorldCat, 29 and also
through google.

mouth, all contribute to making our collections more
findable.
We participate in international efforts to encourage theuse of ‘landing pages’ or collection descriptions, which
describe the context in which a collection was built andgive an overview of its contents. Such overviews can be
published as online catalogue pages—as for example in
the ELAR archive33—in journal articles (e.g., Salffner2016), or as web pages (e.g., Thieberger n.d.).

To allow for geographic searching of the catalog, adepositor can draw a bounding box on a map to indicate
the geographical locus of the research. This informationis stored in our catalogue as coordinates (minimum andmaximum latitude and longitude) and displayed on the
catalogue record for relevant collections and items, aswell as feeding to the summary map on our catalog’s
homepage.

Like most online repositories, our archive PARADISEC
has often been contacted by community users who havediscovered us by a simple web search. But many small
or economically disadvantaged communities do nothave the resources to find our collections this way. In
these cases, personal or place-based networks can be the
key allowing people and recordings to be connected.
Perhaps the original depositor has ongoing contact with
community members? Or can we forge partnerships toreach out to potential users via local cultural centres,
schools or broadcasters?

We have been exploring new ways to publicise ourcollection. In the Glossopticon30 project we have built avirtual reality system that allows the user to see shardsof light emanating from the ground in a 3D map. Eachshard represents a language and if PARADISEC has anaudio record in that language then we have snipped a 20
second piece from five minutes into that file and made itavailable to be heard. The effect is of walking through aforest of languages, with the volume of each snippet
increasing as you walk towards a language location anddecreasing as you walk away. While Glossopticon iscurrently not showing snippets from the full collection,
we are planning that a new version will be a point ofentry to the whole of the PARADISEC collection. We
have also presented a selection of texts using augmented
reality in which a poster presents an image related to thetext. Passing an ipad or similar device over that image
then triggers a video to play on the device.

Accessible PARADISEC
Since its establishment, PARADISEC has always usedpersistent identifiers for objects in our collections, down
to the file-level. In 2016 we added digital object
identifiers (DOI) 34 to all collections, items and files.
This provides certainty that the objects referenced willremain accessible into the future even if the URLs orservices change over time (that is, if the resource moves
or the host service restructures). The same DOI willcontinue to resolve to the correct resources at their new
locations.
Accessibility of data also relies on the format of the data
provided by the archive being readable, and on theuser’s access to information on how it is licensed.
PARADISEC requires data to be formatted according tonormal archival standards, meaning that files weprovide can be read by common and widely available
software. In some cases, data deposited has to beconverted from other formats before it can beaccessioned. For example, we will not store compiled
databases, but will accept a properly exported textual
version of them, and similarly, Microsoft Word (.doc)
documents need to be converted to an open format toensure their legibility over time. For audiovisual media,
digitisation to a suitable international standard is the
only means of preserving future access to audio or video
originally recorded in obsolete formats. Archival
preservation master versions need to be high resolution(where possible uncompressed) to maximise their futureusability for subsequent editing, repackaging, and/or
publication.

Our use of these new technologies has generated
considerable press coverage (for example in the PNG
Post Courier, in Pursuit, 31 and a number of radio
interviews32), which has meant that many more people
are now aware of the collection. Such publicity, alongwith mentions in academic publications, presentations atconferences, social media posts and even word-of-25

http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/apidoc

26

http://www.language-archives.org/

27

http://trove.nla.gov.au/28

https://vlo.clarin.eu

29

https://www.worldcat.org/

30

See a news story and YouTube clip about Glossopticon
here: https://rebrand.ly/ABCGlossopticonStory31

http://link.coedl.net/PursuitVRarticle

33

https://elar.soas.ac.uk

32

e.g., https://rebrand.ly/PacificBeat-VRstory34

https://www.doi.org

137

The ultimate key to accessibility of archival holdings ishaving robust licences that specify the terms underwhich items are held and distributed, and systems to
support authorised distribution. Depositors assign accessconditions to all items in their collections, down to thelevel of an individual item, and can also assign specificaccess rights to individual users. The content of thecatalogue itself is licensed using a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.35

incoming data from proprietary formats to open formats
where possible. For example, a dictionary written in aword processor is less useful for other services than is alexical database created in a tool like Fieldworks
Language Explorer.40 Several dictionaries deposited as
Microsoft Word documents have been converted tostructured text to make them more archivable andinteroperable.

Re-usable PARADISEC

We have designed forms and systems to minimize thebarriers to access, so that any item with the accesscondition “Open” can be accessed, listened to, or
downloaded by registered users. Registration simply
involves sending an email request, then confirming
one’s email address and accepting the accessconditions.36

Re-usability requires data to be in standard formats.
Archives keep the best possible version of a file, which
is often too large to distribute for most purposes. As partof the deposit process we automatically transcode files
from high resolution to smaller files for quicker accessand store them all together. For example, ourpreservation audio standard results in 24-bit 96khz
stereo broadcast wave files, which come out to about 2
GB per hour or audio. MP3 dissemination audio files ofthe same duration come out to approximately 56MB, orapproximately 1/20th the size of the uncompressed
preservation master.

Interoperable PARADISEC
To be interoperable, metadata and data need to use
formal, accessible, shared, and broadly applicablelanguages and standards for knowledge representation.
PARADISEC’s work is interoperable at two levels: oneis the structured metadata stored in our catalog, and theother is the data in the collection.

PARADISEC allows authorised online users to view,stream and download materials via our web interface.
Various projects have explored innovative ways ofenriching the online experience by linking text andmedia. In the online system EOPAS,41 we demonstrate
the advantage of linking media to interlinear text (which
includes word-by-word meanings as well as a freetranslation), and then presenting the interlinked text andmedia online. We have also helped set up community
repositories in partnership with local cultural centres,
which can then assist end users to copy relevantmaterial. In places without easy access to digital
infrastructure, books or other printed materials based onarchival media may be the best way to provide access.

The terms used in our catalog—such as title, date,description, role, country and so on—conform tointernational metadata standards (Open Archives
Initiative37 and Dublin Core38). This is what makes our
metadata feeds interoperable with the harvesting
services noted earlier. To ensure consistency whenitems are entered into the catalog, we use controlled
vocabularies in dropdown menus, as well as text
completion based on existing records. The language
vocabulary we use is based on the International
Standards Organisation 639-339 codes for representationof the names of the world’s languages, thus facilitatinginteroperation with other language archives world-wide.
Each time a catalogue record is saved, the information is
written as an xml file into the same directory as thestored data, ensuring that the knowledge held as
structured metadata in the catalogue is also kept in thecollection itself.

Building resources for learning and teaching language,
history and culture, revitalising local performance
traditions or reinforcing social identity throughbroadcasting are all possible pathways for future re-useof archival material. Ultimately, it is up to community
members to decide on what they will do with archival
materials once they have access; and it is up to languagearchives to listen and do our best to keep the pathways
open to enable that.

The interoperability of the data in the collection largely
depends on data formats and how data is structured—
this is the depositor’s responsibility. We provide online
advice and also run occasional training sessions fordepositors so that they know how to create data ininteroperable formats. We also work to convert
35

Of course, re-usability is also dependent on the other
FAIR features already discussed. Any future re-use
depends on being able to find materials, which need to
be in formats that are accessible and interoperable andthey need to be of sufficient quality (in content and informat) that they can be used.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

36

Our
accessconditions
are
set
out
http://www.paradisec.org.au/deposit/access-conditions/

here:

37

https://www.openarchives.org/

38

http://dublincore.org/documents/

40

https://software.sil.org/fieldworks/

39

https://www.iso.org/standard/39534.html

41

http://eopas.org/

138Beyond FAIR

Conclusion

Up to this point, the FAIR principles have provided auseful framework for discussing what we do in
PARADISEC. However, we also engage in otheractivity that helps unlock the archive.

PARADISEC is an archive established and built by
researchers. It has taken advantage of technologicaladvances that, in some cases, traditional archives are not
yet able to adopt and is part of an international networkof similarly innovative archives. We have been involved
in discussions with several groups who would like toestablish regional archives and hope that more suchprojects will emerge in the near future, especially in our
region (perhaps in Singapore or Japan for example).
While our collection is already accessible to online
users, we continue to publicise the collection in order tomake it as findable and accessible as possible. Archives
like PARADISEC, in making previously locked-up
analogue recordings available for re-use, are giving newlife to old records.

In 2015 we built a viewer42 for items in the collectionthat identifies what kind of data type an item contains
and presents a viewer appropriate for that item. For
example, we pre-generate and store thumbnails as anavigation aid for an item containing images. Audio
files in a streaming format can be played from any pointin the file, and if they have time-aligned transcripts then
the transcript will scroll along with the media.
Interlinear text transcripts are also provided for in thisviewer. We have plans to include a spectrograph image
above the audio slider to allow navigation via the visualcues in the spectrograph to points in the audio file that itpresents.

Acknowledgments
Work described here was carried out with the help of
the following grants: Endangered Archives Programme
grant 693 (Preservation of Solomon Islands analogue
recordings), Australian Research Council LIEF program(2003, 2004, 2006, 2011), ELDP LMG0009 Vanuatu
Cultural Centre tape digitisation, ARC Centre of
Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, ARC Future
Fellowship FT140100214.

In a number of projects, we have digitised collections
for museums or cultural centres in the Pacific. We thenstore the files and deliver them via our catalogue (if weare permitted to by those agencies). We also return hard
drives of all the files to the relevant agency for loading
on a suitable local computer. It would be ideal if we had
a way of presenting the catalogue for these items as asubset of our online catalog, but at present we lack thatcapability. One solution that we have tried for local
access points is to build an iTunes installation 43 forwhich we embed metadata from our catalogue in mp3
files, together with a photo of the performer recorded oneach file. This has the advantage of using an existing
software platform that is widely available, operates on
multiple platforms, and with which many computer
users are already familiar. Since the installation is only
available on a single computer it avoids internet
authentication issues.

References
Barwick, L. (2004). Turning it all upside down . . .
Imagining a distributed digital audiovisual archive.
Literary and Linguistic Computing, 19(3):253-263.
http://hdl.handle.net/2123/13114
Dorian, N. C. (2014). Small-Language Fates andProspects: Lessons of Persistence and Change from
Endangered Languages: Collected Essays. Brill’sStudies in Language, Cognition and Culture, volume
6. Leiden: Brill.

We are routinely asked for hard disk copies of multiple
files related to a particular language and we happily
provide this service when we can. In some cases
feedback from users leads to an enrichment of ourcatalogue description. In a recent case, the library at theDivine Word University in Madang arranged forrecordings to be played at the local market in order tosee if anyone recognised speakers or could add more
information to the catalog.

Gippert, J., N. P. Himmelmann, and U. Mosel (eds).
(2006). Essentials of Language Documentation.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Salffner, S. (2015). A guide to the Ikaan language andculture documentation. Language Documentation &Conservation 9:237–267.
Thieberger, N. (2016). Documentary Linguistics:
Methodological
Challenges
andInnovatory
Responses. Applied Linguistics. 37.1:88-99. doi:
10.1093/applin/amv076

We are also exploring the possibilities offered bylibrarybox, 44 which establishes a local wifi network
independent of the internet. This means that any device
that can receive wifi can be used to access records
transmitted from the librarybox device.

Thieberger, N. (n.d.) Guide to the Nafsan, South Efate,collection. http://www.nthieberger.net/sefate.html

42This is an open source javascript system available here:
https://github.com/MLR-au/pdsc-collection-viewer/

43

Discussed here: http://rebrand.ly/ITunesRepatriation

44

http://librarybox.us/

139