Recording of the week: Rinding gumbeng from Central Java

This week’s selection comes from Michele Banal, Audio Project Cataloguer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage. Rinding gumbeng is a style of Central Javanese folk music that, although not widespread, is still common in the rural Gunungkidul area, about 50 km east of Yogyakarta, where it is performed at harvest rituals…

Partition memories and the power of oral testimony

BBC journalist and author Kavita Puri reflects on the power of oral testimony. Hear more from Kavita at the British Library on Tuesday 16 July at 7pm, where she will discuss Partition Voices in conversation with Kirsty Wark.

Recording of the week: discovering Victorian coins in a Leeds butchers shop

This week’s selection comes from Camille Johnston, Oral History Assistant Archivist. As a boy the artist Norman Ackroyd (born 1938) developed a fascination with Victorian coins such as the Godless florin and Bun Head penny. He helped out in his family’s butchers shop in Leeds, and vividly describes in his…

Chernobyl: Perspectives from the British Nuclear Industry

Reflections on the Chernobyl disaster in An Oral History of the Electricity Supply Industry.

Innovations in sound and art

Creative and personal responses from Royal College of Art students to British Library oral histories.