Unlocking Our Sound Heritage

Unlocking our sound heritage

Unlocking our Sound Heritage was a UK-wide project that will help save the nation’s sounds and open them up to everyone.

Published date:

Background

The British Library is home to the nation’s sound archive, an extraordinary collection of over 6.5 million recordings of speech, music, wildlife and the environment. These recordings, from the UK and around the world, date from the birth of recorded sound in the 1880s to the present day. The sound archive forms a vital part of the nation’s collective memory and tells a rich story of the diverse history of the UK.

However, sound items are under threat, both from physical degradation, and as the means of playing them disappear from production. Professional consensus internationally is that time is running out to save many of our sound collections. There is an urgent need to preserve as much as possible in the next decade before they become unreadable and are effectively lost.

The Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project – part of the Save our Sounds programme – aimed to preserve and provide access to thousands of the UK's rare and unique sound recordings: not just those in our collections but also key items from partner collections across the UK.

 

The project

This was an ambitious UK-wide project, delivered between July 2017 and March 2023. The funders were the National Heritage Lottery Fund (NHLF), the Foyle Foundation and the British Library’s grant in aid. The British Library led the project, in partnership with ten regional and national museums and libraries from across the UK. Together we preserved, digitised, catalogued, and copyright cleared the most vulnerable recordings across the United Kingdom. The key objectives of the project were to:

  • Preserve: Transform access to and preserve the UK’s most vulnerable and at-risk audio heritage.
  • Awareness: Raise awareness of the importance and value of the nation’s sound heritage.
  • Expand: Create sustainable centres of excellence in digital audio preservation around the UK.
  • Engage: Involve new audiences in engaging with their audio heritage in innovative ways.

You can read about the projects outcomes in the evaluation reports.

 

Find out more about Unlocking Our Sound Heritage

Visit our Sounds website, which includes over 120,000 sound recordings for you to enjoy, covering the entire range of recorded sounds: music, drama and literature, oral history, wildlife and environmental sounds.

There is more information on the Sound archive on our Help for Researchers pages, including how to order and listen to collection items in our Reading Rooms. 

Follow us on Twitter @soundarchive and keep up with the latest news on Sounds through our Sound and vision blog.

For further information about the Sound archive and the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project, contact sound-archive@bl.uk.

Compressed magenta sound-wave graphic. Logo for Unlocking Our Sound Heritage. National Lottery Heritage Fund crossed fingers logo

Partners

Archives+, Manchester

Archives+ is the North West of England Hub for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

London Metropolitan Archives

London Metropolitan Archives is the London Hub for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

Bristol Culture

Bristol Culture is the South West of England Hub for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

University of Leicester

University of Leicester is the Midlands Hub for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

Norfolk Record Office

Norfolk Record Office is the East of England Hub for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums

Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums (TWAM) is the North East and Yorkshire Hub for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

National Library of Scotland

National Library of Scotland is the Scottish Hub for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

The Keep, Brighton

The Keep is the South East of England Hub for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

National Library of Wales

National Library of Wales is the Welsh Hub for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

National Museums Northern Ireland

National Museums Northern Ireland is the Northern Irish Hub for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

All projects

Projects

Save our Sounds

Save our Sounds was our programme to preserve the nation’s sound heritage.

National Radio Archive

We aim to create a digital radio archive which will preserve a representative proportion of ongoing UK radio output.

Directory of UK Sound Collections

The British Library has created a directory of UK sound collections

Digital Audio Collection

The Digital Audio Collection aims to preserve a broad spectrum of sounds to reflect the UK’s audio publishing industry.

All projects