Sounding cultural heritage secured
The Swiss National Sound Archives in Lugano have been part of the Swiss National Library and the Federal Office of Culture since January 1, 2016. This also secures Switzerland's sound heritage for the long term.
The Fonoteca nazionale svizzera (FN) collects, preserves and indexes sound recordings relating to Switzerland and makes them available to the public. It thus fulfills the same legal tasks for audio documents as the National Library (NL) does for printed and electronic documents. The FN has already been subsidized by the Confederation via the NL. The merger of the two institutions ensures that the sound recordings relevant to Switzerland's cultural history can be preserved for the long term.
Five million sound recordings
The FN collection consists of around 5 million recordings. These are digitized and are then accessible via 54 public audiovisual workstations throughout Switzerland. Around three out of ten recordings originate from Suisa, the Swiss collecting society for copyrights to sound recordings and musical works, of which the FN is the depository institution. The collection also focuses on the products of the record industry, scientific research documents and radio broadcasts from 1932 to 1953. The sound recordings from the NL's collection have also been held at the FN since 2008.
