海角大神

Today鈥檚 news climate might well be one of sound and fury, but it turns out the actual soundtrack to our cultural and political history is there for the taking and the listening. And it鈥檚 a soundtrack being tenaciously preserved by librarians and archivists who recognize that much of our history and culture can be found and experienced through audio.聽

鈥淎udio history, or what I think of as oral history, provides us with insights into the meanings everyday people are giving to聽daily events we see in the news,鈥� says Beverly Romberger, a communications professor at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Penn.,聽who specializes in oral histories. 鈥淧olls tell us numbers about the political context. Stories let us hear the individual citizen鈥檚聽recounting of events,聽emotions, the life dreams,聽the hopes, the anguish.聽Ordinary people have a voice through audio history.鈥�

In fact, all things audio, from podcasts and audiobooks to radio, are enjoying a resurgence as technology makes good storytelling accessible anywhere. While good storytelling engages and transports listeners, audio storytelling is particularly intimate because it invites listeners to create their own images of characters and scenes as they listen. And audio history tells the stories that often fall through the cracks, says Dr. Romberger, adding聽鈥渁udio history lets us tell our stories.鈥�

Unearthing everyday stories聽

It takes some digging to unearth hidden historical and cultural archives and turn ordinary voices into compelling stories. But Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva know how to dig. As the long-running audio production team The Kitchen Sisters, the pair is reintroducing podcast and radio audiences to the importance of audio narrative not only for entertainment, but also for the preservation of our culture at a time when many archivists and librarians feel it鈥檚 more important than ever to preserve the nation鈥檚 diverse cultural history.聽

Working on audio journalism about two decades ago, they realized that the archivists, curators, historians, and librarians who were their shepherds through these audio landscapes were, in fact, the stars of their own stories.聽

That realization gave birth to 鈥淭he Keepers,鈥� a podcast series that unearths the stories of the people who find and preserve the touchstones and artifacts that make our culture what it is.聽

And these grass-roots oral stories and unofficial histories are essential elements of our culture, says Charlotte Nunes, director of digital scholarship services at Lafayette College in Easton, Penn.聽

鈥淥ral history is extremely important for a more inclusive historical record that includes communities, narratives, and histories,鈥� she says in an email. These often-overlooked stories create what Dr. Nunes calls 鈥渃ommunity-generated memory鈥� that captures the real stories bubbling up from our culture rather than the official 鈥渢op-down鈥� stories deemed important by those in power.聽

Ms. Silva likes to tell a story about a librarian whose library had become a haven for the homeless, so she asked them what her staff could do for them. 鈥淪he thought she knew the answer,鈥� says Silva. 鈥淏ut what they wanted were telescopes. And classes where they could learn about the night sky. Because they鈥檙e out there and they鈥檙e looking at the night sky and they wanted to better understand what they were seeing.鈥澛�

For their productions over the decades, Ms. Nelson and Silva have sifted through hours of tape on everything from home recordings made by families to songs by Ku Klux Klan barbershop quartets. They once found undiscovered recordings that Tennessee Williams had made with a lover in a penny arcade in New Orleans in 1947.聽

鈥�He just stored his stuff under a friend鈥檚 bed,鈥� says Nelson.聽

鈥楿nsung heroes鈥櫬�

In an era seen by many as fraught with political divisiveness and 鈥渇ake news,鈥� preserving audio artifacts is more important than ever, say some archivists.聽

鈥淒ue in part to the current surge of open white nationalism,鈥� says Nunes, 鈥渁rchives are under more pressure to deliberately and collaboratively build collections that document and preserve diverse histories of who constitutes our nation, today and historically. Deliberately inclusive collection-building is a direct counter to the xenophobia and fear-based exclusion that drive our national politics.鈥澛�

Nelson and Silva call the people who are working to preserve audio records 鈥渦nsung heroes.鈥�

鈥淭hey are the keepers of our heritage, our history,鈥� says Silva. 鈥淭hey are keeping our truths.鈥�

鈥淲e had come to think of them as unsung heroes of the nation,鈥� says Nelson, 鈥渢hat here were these people quietly working, often in very isolated environments, working to preserve and protect and to聽keep聽these documents, whether it was political documents or artifacts.鈥�

Audio takes you back in time聽

鈥淔ake news鈥� may have a silver lining: It has encouraged some storytellers to find different ways to tell stories, and when it comes to visceral storytelling, there鈥檚 hardly a better medium than audio, says John Baick, a history professor at Western New England University in Springfield, Mass.聽

Whether it鈥檚 the voice of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. or the Beatles or President Trump, he says the audio soundtrack to historical conversations provides the meaning and context that can take you back in time.

鈥淭here is a rhythm to the words that is more important than some of the actual words,鈥� says Dr. Baick in an email. 鈥淭hese meetings are experienced like a concert, not like a lecture. A photo is not enough. A transcription of the speech is not enough. Even footage of Donald Trump speaking is not enough. You kind of had to be there. And sound gets us there faster than any other sense.鈥�