This week’s selection comes from Sarah Coggrave, Rights Clearance Officer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage. In 2017, the Mike Sparrow Collection (C1248) was the first audio collection to be preserved as part of the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project. Mike Sparrow (1948 – 2005) was a radio producer and presenter…

A tribute to art writer Guy Brett (1942 – 2021)

The Daniels Ethnographical Expedition to New Guinea 1904 Cylinder Collection (C62) is a collection of 40 wax cylinders recorded in what is today Papua New Guinea. The collection – formerly known as the ‘Seligman New Guinea Cylinders’ – came into the Library in the 1950s as part of the Sir…

This week’s selection comes from Daisy Lindlar, Marketing Manager for Sound. Women’s History Month is marked in March every year to celebrate and recognise women’s contributions to society and history. Our archives are full of sounds that lift the lid on the experiences of women through the decades. From Florence…

In September 2019 the British Library started recording radio. The Library already had a substantial collection of radio programmes, going back to the 1920s, and has been recording radio off-air – that is, from the live broadcast – since the 1960s. But this was a new project intended greatly to…