What We Archive

Cultural & Community Knowledge

Time sensitive crafts, information, traditional techniques, datasets, govt listings before they’re lost/scraped.

Cultural Memory & Digital Sovereignty

Community-controlled preservation of living heritage through participatory documentation. We approach cultural preservation as community sovereignty work, treating digital folklore, memes, and social media content as legitimate cultural artifacts while fostering place-based storytelling traditions.

1. Digital Folklore & Meme Culture Documentation

   Memes, viral content, and digital culture represent legitimate folklore and cultural memory worthy of preservation. Research validates that internet memes are integral parts of shared digital cultural memory, revealing generational humor, cultural concerns, and place-specific digital expressions.

   • Meme archival: Systematic preservation of local and regional meme culture, digital folklore, viral content with cultural significance
   • Language evolution documentation: Digital slang, Assamese-English code-switching, hyperlocal expressions, generational linguistic innovation
   • Platform-specific culture: Instagram stories culture, Facebook posts as community narrative forms
   • Digital storytelling: Contemporary folklore emerging through social media, community-generated cultural content

2. Traditional Heritage & Archive Integration

   Traditional knowledge digitization: Audio/video recording, transcript creation, searchable archives with community consent

   1. Historical Document & Newspaper Archives

      • Systematic digitization of Assamese newspapers, historical publications with OCR/searchability. See Digitizingঅসম
      • Government records preservation: Colonial-era documents, independence movement papers, policy evolution tracking
      • Personal archives collection: Letters, diaries, photographs from families/communities with consent protocols
      • Academic paper repositories: Research on Assamese culture, language, history accessible to community

   2. Archive Mapping & Accessibility

      • Existing archive inventory: NTF’s 1.28M digitized pages, INTACH manuscripts, Assam State Archives, community collections
      • Gap identification: What’s missing, at-risk, or poorly accessible in current preservation efforts
      • Discoverability improvements: Better search interfaces, metadata standards, cross-archive linking
      • Community accessibility: Making institutional archives usable for local researchers, students, creators
      • Archive integration: Connecting scattered collections through shared platforms and search capabilities

3. Anti-Silo Infrastructure & Digital Liberation

   Fighting against information silos and corporate platform dependency through systematic preservation of community knowledge before it disappears. Following Aaron Swartz principles that information is power. Corporate platforms hoard community knowledge, we liberate it for community use.

   Social media platforms create “walled(and timed) gardens” that trap community knowledge behind corporate walls, invisible to search engines and controlled by algorithms rather than community needs.

   Local Knowledge at Risk:

   • Guwahati community events announced only on Instagram Stories (24-48 hour lifespan). when deleted, no public record exists
   • Local artists sharing traditional techniques only on social media, if in any case platform bans or account deletions erase cultural knowledge
   • Government policy announcements on Facebook but not official websites. critical information becomes inaccessible

   Historical Precedents for Mass Loss:

   • MySpace’s 2019 server migration deleted 50 million songs and 12 years of music history - entire indie music movements vanished overnight
   • GeoCities shutdown in 2009 eliminated millions of personal websites and early internet culture
   • Over 2,000 government datasets vanished from Data.gov during administrative transitions
   • 23% of web pages from 2013 are now completely inaccessible due to “link rot”

   When platforms change policies, accounts get deleted, or companies shut down, communities lose control over their own information infrastructure. This represents digital colonialism where corporations extract value from local knowledge while communities bear the cost of cultural loss.

Government Accountability & Transparency

Policy Tracking & Documentation

• Government website changes and policy updates
• RTI responses and systematic public information requests
• Electoral promise tracking: Manifesto archival, campaign commitment performance measurement using systematic methodology
• Website monitoring tools tracking government page changes
• Policy change documentation with before/after comparisons
• Local government decisions affecting community resources
• Development project documentation and community impact

Civic Engagement Archives

• Public meeting records and community organizing documentation
• Citizen feedback and government response patterns
• News channel content analysis: Real-time transcription, fact-checking archives, automated monitoring with 99%+ accuracy
• Media accountability tracking: Advertising time vs content ratios, disinformation documentation, narrative ecosystem analysis
• Social media archiving of official accounts and public communications
• RTI response tracking and systematic public information collection
• Community-controlled databases with appropriate access levels
• Alert systems for policy updates affecting local communities
• Integration with existing transparency networks and advocacy organizations
• Public-facing interfaces for community research and education
• Infrastructure changes and public space transformations
• Resource allocation and budget transparency