Our collections of audio and video interviews provide insights into many aspects of UK personal memory, identity and experience.

Collection guides

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Listening and Viewing Service box

Listening and Viewing Service

The Listening and Viewing Service provides free onsite public access to our collection of recorded sound and video.

Users can hear any item from our extensive holdings of published and unpublished recordings of music, wildlife, drama, literature, and oral history.

We can also provide access to archived BBC Radio broadcasts.

Mon - Thu: 10.00 - 20.00
Fri - Sat: 10.00 - 17.00
Sun and English Public Holidays: closed

You will need a Reader Pass. Over 200,000 digital tracks are available for instant access through our catalogue without an appointment, though you may have to make an appointment to listen to some sounds.

British Library Sounds offers free online access to 80,000 selections from the Library’s extensive collections of unique sound recordings.

T: +44 (0)20 7412 7418

Online enquiry form

Blog posts

Recording of the week: Peter Rickenback on being a fugitive in Europe

Monday, March 27, 2023

The British Library recently launched a new online learning resource, Voices of the Holocaust, as part of Unlocking Our Sound Heritage. The new website features a curated selection of audio clips, pulled mainly from four collections of oral history interviews...

Recording of the week: Hanns Alexander on being a Nazi hunter after World War Two

Monday, March 20, 2023

On 11 March 1946 Hanns Alexander arrested Rudolf Höss, a German SS officer who was the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz. Hanns, who was born in Berlin in 1917, fled Nazi persecution in the late 1930s because he was Jewish. He...

From vocal to visual, with family scraps

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Artist Sophie Herxheimer, creator of the artwork for the British Library’s new Voices of the Holocaust website, reflects on her approach to contextualising and representing the voices of Holocaust survivors. This collection of interviews with Holocaust survivors encompasses themes of...

Recording of the week: Setting up the Athena Project

Monday, February 13, 2023

In belated celebration of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science (February 11), this week’s selection comes from Emmeline Ledgerwood, Voices of Science Web Coordinator. In 2005 the Athena Swan Charter was launched to encourage higher education and...

More blog posts

Case studies

Dvora Liberman
…To create an archive which will be part of the Library is really a privilege…

Dvora is a collaborative PhD student exploring the social world of Crown Court clerks from the 1970s onwards.

Emmeline Ledgerwood British Library
…I never really thought I’d do a PhD … but this particular collaborative arrangement was too good to miss!…

Exploring the privatisation of government science through life histories

Michael Bird, St Ives by Peter Garrett
…I ranged at will through more than fifty interviews – still just a fraction of the total…

Michael Bird explored the Artists' Lives collection to produce an exhibition and a forthcoming book

Polly Russell
…The Fellowship allowed us to dedicate ourselves to researching the food recordings and finding different audiences for them…

Polly Russell and Barley Blyton are food writers and academics. They were 2015 Goodison Fellows at National Life Stories where they focused on the 'Food: From Source to Salespoint' oral history interviews.

Oral history projects

Materials, studio of Trevor Bell. Photograph copyright Steve Tanner.

National Life Stories: Artists' Lives

Artists’ lives and work in their own words

The Floral Hall in the Royal Opera House

National Life Stories: Architects' Lives

Documenting the life and work of British architects and their associates

Sarah O'Reilly interviewing Dame Penelope Lively for the National Life Stories project Authors' Lives

National Life Stories: Authors' Lives

In-depth interviews with leading authors working in Britain today

All projects

Projects

Mary Restieaux, Ikat woven silk textile, 1982. Image courtesy of Andra Nelki

National Life Stories: Crafts Lives

Memories and experiences of independent designer makers working in British studio crafts

Birmingham Grid Control Centre

National Life Stories: An Oral History of the Electricity Supply Industry in the UK

Life stories of people involved in the industry's development and operation in Britain

Photograph of the Royal Courts of Justice. Image courtesy of James Petts, Wikipedia Commons

National Life Stories: Legal Lives

In-depth interviews with people involved in the legal and criminal justice system

Fossil beetle remains viewed through Russell Coope's microscrope, image courtesy of Hamish Nicholson

National Life Stories: An Oral History of British Science

An Oral History of British Science is a national collection of in-depth, life story audio interviews with scientists and engineers.

All projects

Library experts

Photograph of Mary Stewart stood in front of the King's Library

Mary Stewart

Lead Curator, Oral History, and Director of National Life Stories

Photograph of Madeline White

Dr Madeline White

Curator, Oral History

External links

The British Library is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Oral History Society

Promotes the collection, preservation and use of recorded memories