Archivist’s Alley Goes to AMIA 2018, Pt 2- KBOO Radio, Radical Audio Culture & the Community Archiving Workshop

Meeting and getting to hang out with Marti and Erin was definitely one of my highlights of AMIA in Portland this year.

While their collection was an audio collection (and this is unusual for AMIA- usually the collection that the Community Archiving Workshop selects each year is a moving image collection) the KBOO archive is incredibly worthy of our preservation and of any kind of assistance that could be given or any volunteer efforts towards their ultimate survival.

One of the things that has remained with me since our conversation is how adamant they were about KBOO as an independent institution and yet how deeply rooted in the community and its history. But not the history that is surface-level. It goes way deeper. KBOO and its activities and participants are tied into what seems to be a kind of underground Portland history.

The world that is reflected by the programming at KBOO is not quite the Hip Voodoo Donuts landscape that Portland has become known for. What I loved about this was that the work that Marti & Erin told me about (and what the Community Archiving Workshop was to be helping them preserve during the conference) was chock full of queer voices, activists, POC and turned-on locals participating in a homegrown organization bent on creating a positive audio hub for family, friends and strangers in this northwest area. I dug it!!!

As usual, the bios for my amazing guests (including some SUPER GREAT LINKS are right under the podcast link.

Erin Yanke is the Program Director at KBOO Community Radio where she is also works on the training program, on podcasting, and with the Youth Collective. She is also a documentarian, working with audio, print, and video. Recent projects include the 300 page art book Dead Moon, First 100 Days event series Educate, Agitate, and OrganizeBright Spark a podcast about harm reduction, and the film Arresting Power: Resisting Police Violence in Portland, Oregon.   

Marti Clemmons is the Archivist at KBOO Community Radio.  For six years, she has been a library technician at Portland State University Special Collections and University Archives where she continues to process, digitize and make Portland history accessible to the public.  
She is interested in using archives as a place for Queer activism.

LINKS:

General KBOO https://kboo.fm/

50th anniversary historical interviews https://www.50yearsofkboo.fm/kboo-stories-project

Some favorite programs
From the  Grassroots https://kboo.fm/program/grassroots

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Kush https://kboo.fm/program/kabhi-khushi-kabhie-kush
Rose City Native Radio https://kboo.fm/program/rose-city-native-radio

Threshold Shift https://kboo.fm/program/threshold-shift
The Confessional https://kboo.fm/program/confessional

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *