Significant progress made in digitizing national broadcasting archive during Ólavsøku festival in Faroe Islands

During the annual Ólavsøku festival in the Faroe Islands, significant progress was made in the digitization of the national broadcasting archive. Around half a million paper documents, approximately 13,000 video recordings, and 30,000 audio recordings have now been digitized. This achievement marks the completion of the primary goal for the SavnsGull project, which was initiated to preserve the broadcasting archive’s contents.

Former leader of the SavnsGull project, Mass Hoydal, emphasizes the need for the archive to be made accessible to all Faroese citizens. In a letter to the editor, he expresses concern that efforts to improve access have not yet commenced. For Hoydal, this issue is fundamentally connected to nation building. “It is crucial that we take ourselves seriously as Faroese,” he asserts.

Hoydal urges the national broadcaster and authorities to begin work on making the archive available to the public. A four-year plan outlining the steps needed to achieve this accessibility has already been developed. Now, it is a matter of the willingness to implement the plan, according to the former SavnsGull leader.