Audio Archives

Naropa Poetics at Archive.Org

Person Describing Archive

Celyn Harding Jones (2010); Chelsea Obodoechina (2020)

Is this primarily a poetry audio site?

Y

Sponsoring Person or Institution

Archive.Org; Naropa University (Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics), called the Naropa University Archive Project.Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Humanities, Save America's Treasures, The GRAMMY Foundation, Internet Archive, The Collaborative Digitization Program and private donors.

Site URL

http://www.archive.org/details/naropa

Site Last Updated
Date Visited

20202020/08/15

General Description of Archive

Preserving and protecting, as well as providing access to over 5000 hours of recordings that were made at the Naropa University (Boulder, Colorado). They have their own website (currently under construction) but Internet Archives provides the template for searching and listening to the audio recordings. The recordings include lectures, readings and classes held (and recorded) from 1974 onwards, held at Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.

Description of archive history or URL

The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics was founded in 1974 by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, and recorded most of its poetic readings and courses led by famous poets. Recordings have been made since 1974, and were collected and preserved by The Naropa University Archive Project. (More information currently unavailable due to their home website being down).

Contact information

archive@naropa.edu.

Searchable options

Tag Cloud, Browse by title, collection, subject, Keyword, date, or creator. Also available: Browse all items by RSS Feed.

Relation from the audio to the text

No transcriptions available.

Date/Time/Length/Context info about the audio items

Most of the time, date is noted, and when possible a short description of the event which is being recorded. A short summary of the reading is given (eg. Gary Snyder reads from his book "Axe Handles" and talks about Buddhism). Length of the recordings is shown on the Play bar only.

Author bios and context within literary history

There are no author bios or contexts, other than the short summary of the reading event that is sometimes provided.

Audio file type: streaming, download, file format, audio file compression quality (WAV, MP3, bitrate)

This seems to be the site with the most comprehensive audio file type choices. More than one format is offered: M3U, MP3 ZIP, VBR M3U, VBR ZIP, Flac, Ogg Vorbis, WAVE. Files are available to stream or for download.

Multimedia integration (pictures, video, etc.)

This site is strictly audio, and contains no pictures or videos.

Audio playback setup (opens in Flash player, on new blank screen, etc.)

You can stream the audio file on the same page, or open it in another screen where a Quicktime play bar appears.

Mobile access (i.e. accessible on smart phones, tablets, etc.)

None

 

UPDATE (Chelsea Obodoechina): Mobile access is possible, but the website does not cater to mobile devices. Functionality may vary depending on the device.

Browsing

Browsing is easy on this site due to the number of search options, as well as the short summaries that are included with each audio file. This way you know a lot more about what is in each recording and decide if it is interesting to you.

Discovery features (pre-made playlists; dynamic lists: lists of recent additions, featured items, related items, etc).
Interactivity and Web 2.0 features

As Internet Archive Users are allowed to sign in, they can comment or "review" each recording or bookmark them.

Other notes

Some of the audio recordings have been time stamped by users for easier navigation, however the time stamps do not connect directly to the audio file.