Audio documents

Film about the Swiss National Sound Archives in Lugano

The Swiss National Sound Archives in Lugano collect sound recordings and preserve them for posterity. They have been archiving Switzerland’s audio heritage and making it available to anyone with an interest since 1987.

The sound of Switzerland

The collection of the Swiss National Sound Archives currently contains more than 500,000 audio media:

  • Swiss record industry productions
  • Recordings of radio programmes
  • Recordings for scientific research
  • Recordings from the estates of composers, performers and collectors

The collection grows by between 20,000 and 25,000 recordings every year.

 

Access to digitised sound recordings

You can access the Swiss National Sound Archives collection directly:

  • in the public rooms of the Swiss National Library in Bern
  • at the Swiss National Sound Archives in Lugano

You can listen to all of the digitised sound recordings at the audiovisual (AV) workstations, which also give you access to other institutions’ recordings.

 

Network of AV workstations

The Swiss National Sound Archives have also set up a protected network of AV workstations at other institutions that allow you to consult the digitised sound recordings:

  • Music schools
  • Libraries
  • Archives
  • Universities

This makes accessing digitised sound recordings easier.

Only non-copyrighted recordings for which the Swiss National Sound Archives own the rights can be accessed freely.

 

Request digitisation

You can ask for sound recordings to be digitised. To do so, simply complete the online form on the data sheet of your chosen recording. The Swiss National Sound Archives will send you an e-mail to inform you when the recording is ready for listening. This normally takes at least a week

Last modification 20.12.2018

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Contact

Swiss National Library
Information Retrieval Service
Hallwylstrasse 15
3003 Bern
Switzerland
Phone +41 58 462 89 35
E-mail

Print contact

https://www.nb.admin.ch/content/snl/en/home/collections/tondokumente.html