This month, Airshow completed the transfer of Naropa University’s complete analog tape collection: 4,148 recordings from the 6,000+-piece archive were transferred by four audio techs over 2+years, resulting in over 4,500 hours of digitized audio ready for online storage.

Naropa was founded 40 years ago, during a wave of Western interest in Buddhism. Over the years, it attracted William S. Burroughs, Harry Smith and Allen Ginsberg, who founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. In 2001, we helped Naropa begin archiving the rich classroom and performance holdings of the JKS, and in 2012 we were tapped to complete the transfer of all archives, including the precious spirituality archive. With help from the GRAMMY Foundation, Naropa established an early model for all-digital storage and online access, a now widely adopted practice. Of the institution’s 6,000 digital recordings, nearly half have been cataloged and made searchable on the ContentDM platform. With Airshow’s work on the project finished, the University Library is the focus of activity, as the rich archive is made accessible to scholars.

For Airshow, work on the project enabled us to optimize our workflow, with a streamlined quality control process for audio and metadata.

The Restoration Center is a suite of services developed for cultural heritage institutions and record labels to affordably and reliably digitize valuable audio catalogs and archives.