Lietuvos Centrinis Valstybės Archyvas – the Lithuanian Central State Archive, is the biggest one within the state archival service. It comes under jurisdiction of the Office of the Chief Archivist of Lithuania. The main mission of its activity is collecting and safeguarding of paper based and audiovisual documents to future generations, providing permanent public access to its collections. The Department of Image and Sound Documents at the Lithuanian Central State Archive was founded in 1955. Since 1965 until 2002 it was an independent archive, and since 2002 the archive was reorganized, being integrated into the Lithuanian Central State Archive again.
Lithuanian Central State Archive has been a member of the International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT/IFTA) since 2004. The Audiovisual complex consists of film, sound, video recordings and photo documents. The division of Image and Sound is the main repository of cinema heritage in Lithuania and holds a total of 8.662 titles. Beside Lithuanian chronicles from 1920-1940, the chronicles of the Second World years, diverse Lithuanian newsreels and sketches from the post-war period, Lithuanian feature films, documentaries of independent film studios and individual creators, starting from 1991 there are more than 2500 units 16 mm silent sketches from Lithuanian TV from 1960-1992 and 45 units 35 mm TV made sound documentaries from 1961 – 1964.
Sound and Video documents department holds more than 20 000 sound documents from 1907 – 2009 – magnetic tapes, vinyl and shellac discs. One of the most interesting parts of the sound documents are records from Lithuanian emigrants’ radio in abroad. Archive holds Lithuanian radio records from over the World – From the USA till Tasmania. Records widely and comprehensively reflect cultural, social, political life of the Lithuanian Diaspora in abroad, their wills, ambitions and efforts in support to Lithuania in its struggle for independence restoration. The oldest and the biggest Lithuanian emigrants’ radio in abroad is radio from Chicago (USA) “Margutis”. The first broadcast of the radio was on 11 of April in 1932. “Margutis” radio continues its activities in nowadays. Archive holds records from 1953 till 1996 in amount of more than 2200 recorded magnetic tapes.