BBC Sound Archive

The BBC Sound Archive is one of the largest collections of audio recordings in the world. It was started in 1936 by Marie Slocombe, who saved important old recordings at the BBC that others planned to throw away.

 History 
The collection began when Marie Slocombe kept recordings of political speeches, radio shows, and music. In the early years, it included rare speeches by leaders like Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler .

 Today 
The archive now holds more than 350,000 hours of sound. It is stored at a special site in Perivale with climate control to protect the recordings. A small part of it is available to the public through the BBC Sound Effects Archive. Many of these sound effects are free to use for personal or educational projects.

 Digitization 
To protect the recordings, the BBC is working with companies like Memnon to digitize the old material. This helps save the sounds for the future.

 Related pages 
 British Library Sound Archive
 BBC Archives

 References 

Category:BBC