From Radio to Archive: WOVV 90.1 FM -What's Happening on Ocracoke? (ECMC #1488)

Over the course of my internship with ECU’s Manuscripts and Digital Curation department, I learned that there is a great deal of work that goes into hosting digital material in an archive. There are two basic forms that digital materials take in an archive: the digitized version of physical materials and materials that originated in digital form, or born-digital materials. Born-digital materials, such as emails, webpages, digital photos, and some radio shows, seem to be everywhere in our everyday lives. Despite the saying that “the internet is forever” these digital materials are often more fragile and ephemeral than many people expect. ECU’s Digital Collections began focusing on collecting and preserving born-digital materials in 2023, as John Dunning, Digital Archivist, writes about in his three-part introduction to digital archiving in Joyner Library’s Special Collections.

 The WOVV 90.1 FM – What’s Happening on Ocracoke? (ECMC #1488) collection is a born-digital collection of audio files from a community radio show on Ocracoke Island hosted by Peter Vankevich that features a diverse lineup of guest speakers. WOVV, Ocracoke’s Village Voice, launched online in 2009 and expanded to broadcast at 90.1 FM in 2010 with the mission to “capture and celebrate the island’s unique voice and culture.”2 The current collection (as of the writing of this article in July 2026) was donated to ECU’s Digital Collections by Peter Vankevich and spans from 2017 to 2026. It covers community events, authors, artists, clergy, politicians, and the effects of disasters like Hurricane Dorian in 2019. The common thread between the guest speakers was a personal connection to Ocracoke Island. I found it fascinating that the interview format and community focus of the radio show meant it had a number of parallels with the collection of oral histories.  

The oral nature of interviews, digital format, and relative modernity of the collection made it different from the other archival materials I worked with during my internship. I needed to turn raw MP3 audio files into searchable archival materials. One of the first tasks I needed to accomplish was to create ArchivesSpace entries for each interview to provide each record with a unique identifier within the collection and a short description of who was speaking and what they were talking about in the form of an abstract. The second task was to transcribe the spoken word of the interviews into the written word, and for this I had access to Otter AI transcription software, which allowed me to edit a machine-produced transcript for accuracy. A complete transcript of each interview ensures that the content is more accessible for a wider audience. While that might not seem like much at a glance, I was able to learn new skills and become comfortable with new technologies over the internship. 

I know there is more beyond just these two steps in digital archiving, but I feel like this was an important introduction to a field that is changing quickly with the advent of innovative technologies. Keeping up with how digital technology is intersecting with the production and distribution of history is crucial for professionals in archives, museums, and other venues of public history. I am thankful to ECU’s Manuscripts and Digital Curation department for this valuable internship experience.