a community guide to archiving languages, memories & knowledges
An emerging network of language and memory keepers — organised by OpenSpeaks.
Launching 3 September 2026 · Kochi
a community guide to archiving languages, memories & knowledges
An emerging network of language and memory keepers — organised by OpenSpeaks.
Launching 3 September 2026 · Kochi“People are Knowledge” — this title of the 2011 documentary by Achal Prabhala, Priya Sen and Zen Marie stayed with us.
From the Preface. Archiving the Present grew out of a three-month online workshop series (18 May–24 August 2026), closing with an in-person session in Kochi. Nearly 20 trainers from seven countries built its eight modules from their own sessions.
Ganesh Birua, Ramjit Tudu and Shalini A
“This module helps you plan your language documentation around your own community’s motivations.”
Taukeer Alam, Anju Gagrai, Opino Gomango and Puthiya Purayil Sneha
“This module explains how informed consent, rights, FAIR and CARE-based ethical practice, and payment work together in community language documentation.”
Pius Akumbu and Amrit Sufi
“This module aims to help you record clear, honest audio and video with the tools you already have, in ways that respect people’s comfort and safety.”
Deepak Kumar Beshra, Amrit Sufi and Subhashish Panigrahi
“This module is to help you organise your audio and video simply, keep them safe, and do basic editing so your recordings are ready for sharing, archiving, and future use.”
Yulha Lhawa, Abu Sayeed and Subhashish Panigrahi
“This module is to help you understand what media and metadata are, and prepare both so that archives, libraries, and other memory institutions can work with the material you collect.”
Eddie Avila, Mithilesh Baraily and Mariana Fossatti
“This module explains why publishing matters, who should be involved, and simple ways to share language recordings and texts safely and usefully.”
Smita Khator, Ritu Sharma and Sanjib Chaudhary
“This module does not see an archive as a one-time act that preserves the past. Instead, it sees it as an ongoing practice that serves your community in the present.”
Mandana Seyfeddinipur
“This module is to help you understand how to fund language documentation work and how institutional archiving works, as two practical skills every community documenter needs.”
Followed by two appendices — a Text Style Guide for captioning, subtitling, and transcribing, and the Oral Knowledge Framework the manual's practice is built on — and a Glossary. Edited by Arky AR, Puthiya Purayil Sneha and Subhashish Panigrahi.