By Dr. Alexander Berzin | Founder and Author of Berzin Archives
Over the spring, we’ve been engaged in intense work here at the Berzin Archives headquarters, and we’ve made impressive progress on our Study Buddhism project.
Over the last few months, our various translators, editors, and assistants, who are based all over the world, have prepared over 250 article translations and more than 500 subtitle files. This work, such as that on preparing subtitles for our videos on YouTube, which are also embedded across the website, is proving more and more invaluable for our audience. Over the last three months, 51% of our videos have been watched with subtitles turned on. When compared with the 29% of videos watched with subtitles during the same period in 2021, it is heartening to see that our hard work is going to good use. Meanwhile, the videos themselves continue to perform well. During March, April, and May, we had over 340,000 views of our videos on YouTube, which is a 25% increase from the previous three months. This was in part due to great interest in our interview with Venerable Thupten Ngodup, the medium of the Nechung Oracle, the Chief State Oracle of Tibet, which we released at the end of April. Engagement on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram has also been increasing steadily as we post more specific content, not only more frequently but in formats suited to each platform. All in all, over the last three months, our content has been seen more than 3.8 million times on the social media platforms we use.
We have worked hard over the last few years to create a rich resource which is as accessible as possible – to people of all backgrounds, cultures, and abilities. And this work continues now. We are very excited to announce that we have a new project: the creation of beautiful, read-out-loud versions of our articles. As usual, we like to make use of current technologies, and so the articles have not been read out loud by a human, but by ultra-realistic AI-generated voices. These recordings will be of great use to our visually impaired audience, and also to those who simply want to listen to articles about Buddhist wisdom on their journeys to and from work. You will see some of these recordings pop up in the Essentials section over the next few weeks and months, so please do take a look and share with your family and friends!
You’ll find all the details of what we’ve been up to in the bulleted list below. Here are some of our accomplishments over these last three months:
All of this hard work is made possible by your continuing generous support. Together, we shall “Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All.”
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