Save our Sounds
Channel: British Library
Date: 2017-10-03

The British Library is home to the national sound archive, an extraordinary collection of over 6.5 million recordings of speech, music, wildlife and the environment, from the 1880s to the present day. 

Sound collections are under threat worldwide, both from physical degradation of the items themselves and from the gradual disappearance of playback equipment for now-obsolete formats. Archival consensus is that we have approximately 15 years in which to save the UK’s sound collections by digitising them, before they become unreadable and are effectively lost forever.

The Library recognises this threat and the need to safeguard our global sound heritage through the Save our Sounds programme. Our clear and urgent goal is to digitise to preserve as much as possible of the nation’s rare and unique sound recordings, not just those in our collections but also key items from partner collections across the UK. In so doing, we aim to raise understanding, usage and public enjoyment of audio heritage more generally. 

The British Library is grateful to have received generous support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and others to help it preserve its recordings and work with 10 other partners across the UK to preserve their collections. Please support our work by donating at http://support.bl.uk/Page/Save-our-Sounds.