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Users can hear any item from our extensive holdings of published and unpublished recordings of music, wildlife, drama, literature, and oral history.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

Blog posts

Wings aren’t just for flying

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

The mechanics behind bird flight have fascinated and inspired humans for centuries. From Leonardo da Vinci to the Wright Brothers, this seemingly effortless process has captivated and influenced some of the finest scientific and engineering minds in history. Wings aren’t...

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...

Two Rachmaninoff Discoveries - Two Knights in 1937

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Sergei Rachmaninoff (Bain News Service, publisher - Library of Congress) By Jonathan Summers, Curator of Classical Music I recently acquired for the British Library Sound Archive an important collection of discs professionally recorded from radio broadcasts during the 1930s. The...

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...

Related events

At the Library

Carole Boyce Davies in conversation with Diane Abbott

Tue 4 Apr 2023

The leadership styles of Black women.

Photos of speakers alongside the cover of Radical

At the Library and online

Radical: Xiaolu Guo in conversation

Thu 13 Apr 2023

The prize-winning writer launches her new memoir.

At the Library and online

Chinese and British: Food Stories

Mon 17 Apr 2023

With Ken Hom, Angela Hui, Jeremy Pang, Helen Tse and Andrew Wong.

Rupert Everett – Travels with Oscar Wilde

Sat 29 Apr 2023

Actor Rupert Everett reflects on the life and times of Oscar Wilde.

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 is 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.