Forever is daunting. And perhaps forever doesn’t even exist, however when it comes to the task of archiving, it's possible to make a lasting stamp across our evolving digital landscape.
In the fall of 2023, Memria was asked by the Norwegian Human Rights Fund to archive one of their earliest projects: I Defend Rights. This was a joint initiative that grew into a collaboration with individuals and partner organizations from around the world. Hundreds of stories from human rights defenders were recorded and organized through Memria’s platform.
Up until now, the stories only existed on the public I Defend Rights website and the backend of the Memria platform. However, neither of these platforms were built to preserve content forever.
And that's where I come in.
The first step was to create accurate transcripts of all the recordings. Memria partners with Trint, a platform that uses artificial intelligence to transcribe audio and video recordings into text. It offers tools for editing, searching, and sharing transcripts, making it easier for users to work with spoken content. Trint's technology can automatically detect and timestamp speakers, which makes navigating recordings way easier. Most of the I Defend Right stories were composed of three questions. Trint combined these audio transcripts into one page per person. Although the software is powerful, a human touch is still required to tell a human story. With this in mind, I brought in a team of native Spanish, French, and Arabic speakers to proofread the scripts for accuracy and clarify words.
Now that the transcripts were ready, we had to organize all the pictures and audio files into folders. Hicham, a coder from Morocco and part of the translation team, wrote original code to efficiently organize the over 500 stories. We held these all in a Google Drive until it was time to actually archive.
Which brings us to the question, where do you put something to make it last forever? The most popular and arguably largest repository of digital content on the internet is the Internet Archive. Currently they preserve 835 billion web pages, 44 million books and texts, 15 million audio recordings, and 1 million software programs. Their mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge, so creating a profile and uploading content was all free! The I Defend Rights audio archive can be found here.
Yet, an effective archive is one that exists in many places. With the main base of Internet Archive covered, I was curious to understand what other platforms had similar objectives. Permanent.org quickly emerged, with a mission to preserve & provide perpetual access to the digital legacy of all people for the historical & educational benefit of future generations. Typical for-profit data storage companies answer to their shareholders, however Permanent is a nonprofit organization that only requires a one time fee based on data size, rather than a monthly subscription. After uploading the I Defend Rights archive, we got an email from the Permanament team interested in our work. Personable and passionate, the permanent team cared about our process and featured our archive in their monthly spotlight, which can be read here.
Ultimately, digital archives serve as guardians of personal and collective memory. In an era defined by rapid change and evolving narratives, these stories hold an unprecedented significance, resonating across cultures and generations. As we navigate the complexities of our present and confront the uncertainties of the future, the voices of human rights defenders captured within the I Defend Rights archive offer invaluable lessons and inspirations. Hopefully ones that will last forever.
Margaret is a multi-disciplinary freelancer and creative with a passion for people and all the stories we hold.