Aprender sin olvidar: lineamientos de trabajo para la recuperación de tradición oral desde la biblioteca

Oral tradition is the knowledge a society perpetuates through spoken means in order to make them reach present and future generations. The richness, complexity and dynamism of these contents, as well as the one of those elements associated to their (re)production, turn them into cultural expressions of an undeniable value. The pressure of written systems and mass media push oral tradition to stand serious threatens to its survival. Even if there are countless institutions of memory management -libraries, archives, documentation centers- working on this non-material heritage, a deep analysis of the real importance of this work is lacking. This paper presents some concepts on oral tradition and its features, exposing the necessary techniques for its collection and stating several questions concerning its future and its relation with librarianship. From a continent where orality played and plays a strong role in the building of popular cultures, it is expected that LIS professionals will develop a more active role in its recovery and spread, in order to not allowing silence to destroy those voices telling their stories from the dawn of time