The Grey-Side of Audio Archives

Archives often include documents that can hardly be considered publications or grey literature as such, yet they maintain their documentary value and play a role of primary sources for the specialists. These documents, indeed, can help archivists to reveal the sedimentation process of the archive itself and to preserve the authentic context of the documentary production. They also appear to be very useful for the community of researchers and scholars. This happens more frequently with oral archives which include ‘non-conventional sources’, thus bringing together audio documents, fieldworks notes, correspondence, slipcases, analogic compact cassettes or open reels. At the cross-road of two disciplines, Archival Science and Grey Literature, this paper aims to argue the applicability of the concept of grey literature to this wide range of documentary materials, by showing the experience of Archivio Vi.Vo, a regional project aiming at building a model for archiving, preserving, managing and disseminating audio documents.