Languages English Español Register/Login   Welcome    - History    - People    - Languages   How to Use   Search   Depositors   Rights   Languages   Help   Links   Contact   AILLA papers   Events

Top Five Reasons to Archive Your Materials — for Speakers

1. Publish and be heard. Let the world know that you are writing and creating recordings and films in your language. It may be easier to publish your work at AILLA, where you will reach a global audience, than with a publishing institution in your city or country. And when you publish with us, everyone will know that the work is yours - it can't be appropriated by anyone else.

2. Accidents happen. Fire, flood, earthquake, revolution... You've worked hard to create these materials - don't let them be lost due to circumstances beyond your control.

3. Languages can disappear in one generation. Even if there are still many thousands of speakers of your language, if children aren't learning it, it is in danger. Make sure that your writings and recordings survive for those future generations that want to learn about their heritage.

4. Let us digitize your materials We produce high-quality files in the formats required by most linguistic analysis software. We will send you your digitized materials on a CD, ready for you to use in transcription, phonetic analysis, multi-tiered time-aligned annotation, creating computer-assisted language instruction materials, and more. (See Links for specific programs.)

5. Share your work with others. It maybe easier for your colleagues to access your work from an Internet café than for you to send copies of tapes and papers through the mail. There are speakers all over Latin America working in their indigenous, languages, writing, recording, developing teaching materials, and more. It could be very interesting to share your ideas with your peers in other communities. And archiving your work at AILLA will make it easier to collaborate with non-indigenous scholars also, giving you a stronger voice in research that is done on your language.

Top Five Reasons to Archive Your Materials — for Academics

1. Accidents happen to data - even for the most careful researchers! We have heard stories (we won't mention the names) of data that was carefully stored in an outbuilding that burned down; of tapes that were carefully stored in a cupboard next to a stereo, which demagnetized the tapes so that all the data was lost; of floods in basements ruining years of painstaking work.... Don't be a victim! Archive your data!

2. Accidents happen to scholars, as well as to their data. People die; people change careers; people retire to little houses at the beach with no room for tapes and papers. If you can't bring yourself to part with your data now, please consider labelling it clearly and leaving instructions in your will, so that your next of kin will know where to send it.

3. Let us digitize your materials. We produce high-quality files in the formats required by most linguistic analysis software. We will send you your digitized materials on a CD, ready for you to use in transcription, phonetic analysis, multi-tiered time-aligned annotation, creating computer-assisted language instruction materials, and more. (See Links for specific programs.)

4. Share your data with the source community, without getting another grant! We know you said you were going to do this in your grant proposal - we all do - but it hasn't really been feasible. But now it's not just feasible, it's easy. If no one in that community has Internet access, you can send them CDs. But Internet cafés are spreading like wildfire throughout Latin America, and pretty soon every market city and even many rural schools will be connected. Wouldn't you like for them to find something in their own languages when they get there? They can use your recordings of narratives, histories, and other genres in language revitalization programs for their communities.

5. Share your data with your peers. This may not sound like a good reason at first glance - what if they publish something you didn't think of from your data? But that's actually a good thing - you get cited, your data becomes a greater part of the ongoing discussions, and if you are so inclined, you can probably write a response that builds that new insight even further. t's more likely, however, that someone will use your data in areas that don't interest you or that you really don't have time for, which means that your language is going to get more thorough treatment than you alone could provide. And besides, pretty soon people will be wondering why you haven't archived your data, and your next grant may actually require it!