British Library Sounds

British Library Sounds (previously named Archival Sound Recordings) is a British Library service providing free online access to a diverse range of spoken word, music and environmental sounds from the British Library Sound Archive. Anyone with web access can use the service to search, browse and listen to 50,000 digitised recordings. Playback and download of an additional 22,000 recordings is available to Athens or Shibboleth users in UK higher and further education. The service was originally launched with funding by the Jisc.

There are over 20,000 hours of rarely heard audio material available online. Images and transcripts are also available for some recordings to further enrich the content.

Recordings may be searched by keywords or browsed by collection types, dates, languages, performer names and subjects. Several collections can be browsed using a map interface.

The British Library Sounds website covers a broad range of content:

African Writers' Club

Over 250 hours of radio programmes about African literary, social and cultural affairs. Made at the Transcription Centre in London, the recordings were broadcast throughout Africa and sometimes on the BBC World Service. Ranging from radio dramas to magazine programmes, from politics to poetry, this collection provides a view of Africa in the mid-1960s.

Art and design interviews

Intimate encounters with the life and work of British painters, sculptors, photographers and architects. Interviewees include sculptors Elisabeth Frink and Eduardo Paolozzi; painters Terry Frost, Paula Rego and Michael Rothenstein; photographers Grace Robertson, Mari Mahr and Helen Chadwick; and architects Denys Lasdun, Ralph Erskine, Edward Hollamby and Patrick Gwynne.

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