This week’s selection comes from Jonnie Robinson, Lead Curator of Spoken English. This short exchange during a conversation between two young females talking about life and relationships offers a fascinating glimpse into how our linguistic choices reflect our identity. One of the speakers, a British Muslim, uses the phrase bringing… read more
This week’s selection comes from Cheryl Tipp, Curator of Wildlife and Environmental Sounds. Coming face to face with a wild orangutan is something most nature lovers can only dream about. In this evocative interview extract, wildlife sound recordist John Paterson vividly describes a chance encounter with a curious female in… read more
This week’s selection comes from Dr Rob Perks, Lead Curator Oral History. In this moving testimony recorded for ‘Lives in the Oil Industry’ project, oral historian Hugo Manson talks to Bob Ballantyne (1942-2004), a survivor of the Piper Alpha North Sea oil rig disaster in 1988 which killed 167 people…. read more
It’s not always realised that the British Library has a substantial moving image collection – around 170,000 items. A great many of these are television programmes in digital form and instantly accessible for researchers in our Reading Rooms on any Library computer. All you have to do is find the… read more
This week’s selection comes from Andy Linehan, Curator of Popular Music Recordings. ‘Rock Island Line’ was the hit single that sparked the Skiffle craze amongst British youth in the late 1950s. Skiffle was a pared-down mixture of jazz, blues and folk influences played on a mixture of tea-chest bass, washboard,… read more