IMG_4595a

The 2014 amal­gam­a­tion of our Film, Tele­vi­sion and Sound Archives into Ngā Taonga Sound & Vis­ion saw its nomen­clature jus­ti­fied this week with the unveil­ing of an aur­al taonga for the ages. On the 35th anniversary of Wel­ling­ton Access Radio’s arrival on air, broad­cast mater­i­al dat­ing back through­out the station’s lively his­tory has been added to the Ngā Taonga archives.

IMG_4592aDis­covered when Radio Col­lec­tion Developer Gareth Watkins popped by his old work at Access, the station’s archiv­al mater­i­al offers an ear in on a wide breadth of Wel­ling­ton voices from as far back as April 1981. Since that time the non-com­mer­cial station’s remit has been provid­ing access to oft-unheard voices with­in the Cap­it­al com­munity.

“Taonga and col­lec­tion items have their own energy,” says Watkins, respons­ible for log­ging, index­ing and facil­it­at­ing access to the Access archive: “They travel through the world and join the col­lec­tion at the right time.” Recor­ded on many-times-reused tapes, many shows exist only as degrad­ing elec­tric waves some­where out in space (such is the Wellingtonista’s rudi­ment­ary under­stand­ing of radio tech­no­logy, at least for the pur­poses of this post). But whatever ended up on those tapes when they left the stu­dio — much of it dat­ing back to the 1980s — now joins the col­lec­tion.

Much of the mater­i­al is still mak­ing its way toward the pub­lic, but Watkins has already begun shar­ing curios. You can hear some excerpts from Access Radio’s very first broad­cast here, and can browse fur­ther items in the Ngā Taonga cata­log for request­ing from the archive.