This week’s selection comes from Richard Ranft, Head of Sound and Vision. Even among wildlife sound recordists accustomed to capturing unusual sounds, it is a surprise to hear the sound of a rat, and one which literally sings, with a change in pitch and rhythm. Amazon bamboo rats are a… read more
This week’s selection comes from Holly Gilbert, Cataloguer of Digital Multimedia Collections. Mother and son, Radhika and Omar, talk about Omar’s experience of attending a drama course at LAMDA – The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Omar describes the assumptions that he feels people at LAMDA have made… read more
PhD placement students, Andrew Booth & Rowan Campbell, write: Is the UK in danger of losing its wide variety of local accents? In the third episode of Linguistics at the Library, Andrew and Rowan investigate why we might tone down our accent when talking to people from different areas, and… read more
The British Library is pleased to make available online around 350 English folk songs recorded by composer Percy Grainger in different regions of England between 1906 and 1909. Thanks to the generous support of the National Folk Music Fund, these sound recordings have been catalogued and indexed by librarian, researcher… read more
This week’s selection comes from Stephen Cleary, Lead Curator of Literary & Creative Recordings. Film-maker Mike Leigh in conversation with novelist William Boyd, 22 March 1991, at the ICA, London, around the time of the release of Life is Sweet, Leigh… read more