Making “Accidental Archives” Pop

I wrote for Humanities Magazine about Pop Up Archive, a startup (funded in part by NEH) that set out to tackle the problem of how to make archived radio broadcasts, podcasts, and other audio files–“accidental archives”–findable and usable. Lots of interesting work going on in this space. And Apple just bought PUA, which is both a dream come true and a concern. (Is there a hum-tech/Silicon Valley brain drain?) The Kitchen Sisters, WGBH, and PRX all figure into the story, along with some fascinating work being done by Tanya E. Clement and her colleagues as part of the HiPSTAS project, based at The University of Texas at Austin.

One thing I am especially pleased about: I interviewed seven people for the story, and five of them are women.

(Photo by Flickr user Joe Haupt, shared under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.)