Finding more historical voices: a guide to public archives
Explore Brazil, France and Australia through holding institutions, while checking what each recording actually represents.
Follow the holding institution
An archive's own item page is often more useful than an isolated audio download. It may identify a speaker, language, duration, recording date and the relationship between the surviving copy and an earlier event. Access conditions vary, so a catalogue link should not be mistaken for guaranteed free playback of every item.
EBC's World Radio Day feature provides a route into Brazilian radio history, including Roquette-Pinto recalling Radio Sociedade. A later recollection of an institution's beginnings is valuable evidence, but it is not automatically a recording made on the institution's first day.
Dates can change the interpretation
INA's de Gaulle item is dated 22 June 1940. It should not be relabelled as an original recording of the more famous 18 June appeal. A familiar speaker and similar subject do not make two broadcasts the same object.
Australia's NFSA documents an address by acting prime minister Ben Chifley announcing the end of the Second World War in Europe. Its collection record provides the starting point for identifying that particular address rather than treating every wartime announcement as interchangeable.
Explore, then return to live radio
These institutions are linked from the historical sound room. Some links lead to archive players, others to collection descriptions. Our own playable recordings are listed separately. After listening, compare a historical voice with the languages, local news and everyday music of a live station from the same part of the world.