Windhoek — "THE new advanced digital technology daily appearing on the market has rendered the old way of documenting important historical data redundant and not compliant with new technological methods. These changeovers have left us with assets we can no longer play or use because they are outdated."

So said UNAM librarian, Ellen Namhila, on Friday at the opening of a one-day sound archives workshop on campus. Two Swiss experts in the sound archives field attended the event with 30 other librarians under the theme, Safeguarding Namibian Orality.

"After this workshop I have great hope that we would come up with tangible results for digital options in the documentation of information for generations to come. The sound archives are of great historical and research value, yet their access to the public is in most cases compromised when new technological advancement moved on leaving us with assets we can no longer use and operate because equipments are old such as LP's and cassettes," Namhila said at the opening of the workshop.

The workshop, organized and financed by Basler Afrika Bibliographien of dr. Doug Henrichsen, was of specific interest to librarians, journalists, media and music producers.

"I am very pleased about the training possibilities in sound archives to help enhance our capacity in Namibia because skills to manage audio-visual archives locally are almost non-existent and so are audiovisual institutions with the required equipment and skills to support the country in this matter," she said.

Discussions were lead on the safeguarding of audio heritage, preservation and conservation of information by the director of the Swiss National Sound Archives, Pio Pellizzari.

"I am very thankful for the information sharing on new equipment by our European counterparts. We do not want to deny humanity its heritage just because it is locked up in old formats," Ellen said.