Black Podcast Archive
Librarian and poet Reginald Harris, left and archivist Steven G. Fullwood. Photo by Lisa C. Moore, 2009.
The Nomadic Archivists Project is collecting, cataloging, and preserving podcasts created by and about Africa or African diasporic cultures. We are interested specifically in podcasts that speak to politics, history, human rights and equality as it relates to the black experience.
We believe that there is critical need to preserve podcasts. Podcasts are ephemeral in nature, and they are often created as a vehicle to share information of the moment. And they are vulnerable. Feeds sometimes end abruptly, or are stored on proprietary sites which are not easy to search and access, or websites hosting them simply disappear. Only now are we beginning to understand how these historical items can contribute to important conversations in the future. We know that few institutions are collecting podcasts to ensure their perpetuity. We hope that by collecting and preserving this rich trove of material we can help build resources for future scholarship.
The Black Podcast Archive is a grant-funded initiative. We will be partnering with a cultural repository to deposit the archive, in 2019.
If you are a podcaster or know someone who is, or know of a great podcast NAP should add to our archive, please contact us by emailing miranda@nomadicarchivistsproject.com.