Sound

Our sound collections feature over 1 million discs, 185,000 tapes, and many other sound and video recordings from all over the world.

Collection guides

Drama and literature recordings
A unique collection of audio-visual recordings of drama, poetry and literature in performance
Oral history
One of the largest collections of oral history and life story interviews in the world
English accents and dialects
We have an extensive collection of spoken voice recordings
Classical music recordings
Recordings in the western concert tradition, opera, liturgical music, and the pre-Baroque repertories of Western Europe
Pop music recordings
We hold one of the most wide-ranging collections of popular music in the world
World and traditional music collection
We hold one of the world's largest collections of recordings variously described as traditional, folk or world music

View all related guides

Help

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Users can hear any item from our extensive holdings of published and unpublished recordings of music, wildlife, drama, literature, and oral history.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

Related events

Africa Writes 2023

Fri 29 Sep - Sun 1 Oct 2023

Africa Writes is back!

At the Library

Longplayer Conversation: Sada Mire and Richard Sabin

Thu 28 Sep 2023

The annual conversation inspired by long-term thinking.

At the Library and online

Africa Writes: Blitz Bazawule

Fri 29 Sep 2023

Ghanaian polymath Blitz Bazawule in conversation with Irenosen Okojie

At the Library and online

Africa Writes: Kwame Dawes and Claudia Rankine in conversation

Sun 1 Oct 2023

Poets Kwame Dawes and Claudia Rankine close this year’s festival with an exploration of its theme ‘Intangible Heritage’.

View all events

Projects

Edison Concert Cylinder in the British Library sound archive, containing aboriginal language recording made in Stevenson Creek, South Australia, by Baldwin Spencer, 1901. Photo by Clare Kendall.

Save our Sounds

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

Directory of UK Sound Collections

The British Library has created a directory of UK sound collections

Edison Fellowships

We offer fellowships to encourage the study of classical music sound recordings

The Future of Radio

This 2016 project investigated the future of radio and radio archives.

All projects

Case studies

More Case studies

…The benefit to our personal and professional development has been great … having the space to explore our own capabilities outside of a strictly academic environment.…

Developing access to the Evolving English collection.