PARADISEC INC

A race against time to digitise analog records of materials from endangered cultures from all over the world.

We find and digitise recordings of unique performances in the world's many small languages. We hold 16,500 hours of audio recordings and 3,000 hours of video recordings that might otherwise have been lost. We have digitised over half of this material and continue to do this work, but without core funding. These recordings are of performance, narrative, singing, and other oral tradition. This amounts to over 210 terabytes, and represents 1,370 languages, mainly from the Pacific region. We work with cultural centres in small Pacific countries to digitise their collections. We run a 'lost and found' project to find field tapes in private hands that need preservation.
PARADISEC works with local agencies in the Pacific region.