Unlocking Our Sound Heritage
'Unlocking Our Sound Heritage
Save Our Sounds
'Save our Sounds' is the British Library’s initiative to preserve and make available as much as possible of the nation's rare and unique sound recordings from different collections across the UK. It was launched in January 2015. Over a period of 20 weeks British Library did an audit to map the conditions of the sound collections held by institutions, societies, associations, trusts, companies and individual collectors. 488 collections holders were identified and together they had 3,015 collections that contained 1.9 million items. Most of the information from the audit can be found in the 'UK Sound Directory'. British Library also identified threats to the sound collections, such as degradation of physical media and declining support for older audio formats from today’s technology industries. According to a global consensus, between sound archivist, there are only a finite number of years before sound collections become unplayable and effectively lost. This is because some formats such as wax cylinders and acetate discs start to naturally decay and equipment required to play some formats will be obsolete. The solution to counteract this is to digitise the recordings and make sure that existing archival material is properly preserved. Its also important to have adequate systems in place for the acquisition of future sound production, to safeguarding the nation’s long-term capacity to care for and use audio collections. 'Save the Sounds' therefore has three major aims:- Preserve, digitise and make available as much as possible of UK's rare and unique sound recordings. This will be done in the 'Unlocking Our Sound Heritage' project, between 2017-2022, together with a consortium of 10 national and regional archival institutions, other selected content contributors, various volunteer organisations and individuals.
- Establish a radio archive that will collect, protect and share a substantial part of the UK’s radio output. This will be done working with the radio industry and other partners.
- Invest in new technology so that music in digital formats can be received and to ensure long-term preservation in the future. This will be done working with together music labels and industry partners.
Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) and British Library
According to a nation wide audit made by British Library in 2015 there are over one million sound carriers, on dozens of different formats, which risk being lost unless they are digitally preserved within the next 15 years. The sound collections and sound recordings forms part of the nation’s intangible cultural heritage and plays a vital part in the collective memory, dating back from the birth of recorded sound in the 1880s to the present. There are also recordings from around the world, in all spoken languages. Between 2017-2022 the UOSH project aims to preserve, digitise and publish online up to 100,000 rare, unique and at-risk sound recordings from its own archive as well as from other collections around the country. The consortium have created a network of ten audio preservation centres with staff in place to catalogue, digitise and preserve audio collections and recordings. They will also engage in programmes of public learning and outreach activities, including workshops, tours, exhibitions and events. In 2020 a newly developed, purpose-built media player and website, hosted by the British Library, is scheduled to be launched. It will allow the public to freely explore and access recordings, which have been cleared for online publication. The regional archival institutions will provide access to their own recordings and those that do not have licences and permissions to be published online. All the digitised recordings are also being ingested and can be found in the British Library's 'Sound and Moving Image' catalogue. National Lottery Heritage Fund has funded the UOSH project with a £9.5 million grant and other donors includes: Garfield Weston Foundation, Foyle Foundation, Headley Trust, British Library Trust and American Trust for the British Library, as well as generous support from charities and individuals has also contributed. The total project funding landed on £18.8 millions.British Library alone houses over 6.5 million recordings of speech in all spoken languages, music, theatre, radio programmes, oral history, wildlife and the environment from all over the world. Some of the collections and recordings which will be digitised includes: recordings with slang, dialects and accents from every social class and regional area in the UK, from the 1950’s ‘Survey of English Dialects collection' to the ‘BBC Voices archive'; writers reading their own works, including Alfred Tennyson, Sylvia Plath and James Joyce; a collection held in the 'Canterbury Cathedral archives' spanning 50 years of services, choral and opera performances; oral histories from 'World War I' and 'World War II'; pirate radio; sound recordings from the British wildlife, coastlines and nature, for example calls of long extinct birds and a recording which helped to save the bittern from extinction in the UK; musical performances and theatre plays, including Laurence Olivier playing 'Coriolanus' in 1959; traditional, pop and world music; oral history interviews with people from all walks of life, ranging from; Kindertransport refugees, migrant workers to second wave feminists and people with a range of disabilities; radio broadcasts going back to the 1930s, including international pre-war stations such as Radio Luxembourg, Radio Lyons, Radio Normandie as well as early previously unheard BBC Radio recordings with American blues, gospel and jazz legends such as Louis Armstrong, Sonny Terry and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
The 10 participating archival institutions
Archives +, in Manchester
Archives+, at Manchester Central Library is the centre for the North West region, which covers libraries, archives and museums from: Cumbria, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. Some of the collections and recordings included in the UOSH project are: 'Manchester Studies oral history archive', created by academics at Manchester Polytechnic 1970s and 1980s, 'Manchester Voices' and interviews with a sword-swallower, a suffragette, the organiser of the Mass Trespass of Kinder Scout, grand-daughter of a woman who witnessed the aftermath of the Peterloo massacre; a gig by Paul Simon and recordings of killer whales made in the waters surrounding Shetland held by the Centre for Wildlife Conservation. One collection that will be useful for family and social historians is the 'Manchester Studies collection' which includes interviews with people from all over Greater Manchester, who were born in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The collection provides a snapshot of working class life in the first half of the twentieth century and interviews includes subjects like: life histories, pioneering women in politics, trades unions, domestic service, cotton industry, pawnbroking, Trafford Park, music halls, maternity services and housing.Bristol Culture
Bristol Archives is working together with 14 museums, archives and institutions in South West England. Some of the collections and recordings included in the UOSH project are: Devon dialect recordings made in the 1970s by the Women’s Institute, the 'Winkleigh Oral History Archive', 'Somerset Oral History collection', the 'University of Bristol Theatre Collection', oral history recordings from the 'British Empire & Commonwealth Collection', performances from St. Pauls Carnival, Cornish brass bands from Cornwall Record Office, jingles from the Bristol Channel recordings by and about Michael Chekhov from the Dartington Hall Trust Archive and recordings about trade unionist A. J. Cook who spent his early years in Wookey. The digitised and catalogued recordings will be preserved at the British Library and will be available to listen to in Bristol Archive's search rooms in Taunton, Barnstaple and Exeter. Material with cleared copyright can also be available via websites and social media channels.London Metropolitan Archives
Between 2018 and 2021 London Metropolitan Archives aims to digitise and catalogue sound recordings from their own audio collections as well as those held at local archives, universities, museums and galleries across the Greater London area, like: the Tate, Royal National Theatre in London, Royal Institution of Great Britain and the School of Oriental and African Studies, as well as borough archives such as Hackney, Brent, and Southwark. The recordings cover everything from oral histories to world music, academic lectures to urban soundscapes.National Library of Scotland
During 3 years National Library of Scotland will be work with 16 different collection partners in order to digitise and share recordings from their archives. Some of the collections includes: 'Scottish Decolonisation Project', 'Oral History collection', 'Salt of the Earth collection' , 'Scottish Life Archive' , 'Against all the odds: women in the Communist Party in Scotland 1920-91' , 'The University experience 1945-1975: an oral history of the University of Strathclyde'. Some of the rare sound recordings includes Scottish traditional music made in Aberdeenshire dating back to the 1940s with many local musicians, included in the 'John Junner Collection'. Junner was a musician and expert on the music of James Scott Skinner, a violinist, fiddler and composer from Banchory. NLS has also developed and artist-in-residence programme, as part of the UOSH project. The first engagement was Val O’Regan from Birdhouse Studio in Argyll, that works with Innellan Primary School and Benmore Botanic Gardens, to create new artist works inspired by the 'Scottish Ornithologist’s Club’s collection' of birdsong and interviews with ornithologist’s. NLS also take help from volunteers both in Glasgow and remotely, to digitise, contextualise and curate the content on the recordings.National Library of Wales
Sound & Screen Archive is the department at the National Library of Wales than cares for sound and audiovisual archival materials. The sound collections encompasses many aspect of Welsh culture and life in Wales, including; private recordings – e.g. concerts, interviews, lectures, readings, oral history, radio programmes – as well as commercial material. There are also sound recordings which extend beyond the boundaries of Wales, that helps to place the rest of the collections in a wider context. While participating in the UOSH project sound recordings will be digitised, catalogues and made available. The material includes; interviews with Welsh migrants to North America and Patagonia, dialect recordings, lectures interviews with industry workers, their families and the community, archives of Welsh traditional music and political speeches by national politicians.The following sound collections and recordings will be digitised in the UOSH project: 'Clwyd Oral History collection', 'Glenys James collection', 'Colin Edwards collection', 'Creating Memory collection', 'Llanrwst Memory project', 'Y Gadwyn Collection' , 'Powysland Club collection', 'Ceramic Archive collection', 'Story of the Forest collection', 'BBC Radio Cymru collection' , 'Wax Cylinder collection' , 'Tredegar Library collection', 'St Fagans collection', 'Tiger Bay Heritage & Cultural Exchange collection', 'Archive of Traditional Music in Wales' , 'Cardiff Business Club collection' and 'Ceredigion Library collection' . Some of the single sound recordings includes: 'Eisteddfod Genedlaethol' in Dolgellau 1949, Cynog Dafis interview with Kate Davies, In Parenthesis read by David Jones and Why should we not sing? by David Lloyd George.
As part of the UOSH project, Screen & Sound, is working together with communities and special interest groups in the Welsh regions. In spring 2020, they announced 20 commissions 'a £100 available for composers, musicians and choirs. The purpose was to enable composers and musicians to create new and unique works during the Covid-19 lock down, by using digitised sound recordings from the collection as inspiration. The aim was to create new interpretations to the sound collections, based on oral histories recorded from various parts of Wales, and present the work in new and exciting ways. The commissioned work will be filmed and displayed on various websites and NLW's social media accounts.