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Rare Sound Recordings Now Available Free Online

The British Library (BL; www.bl.uk) has made nearly 28,000 rare music and sound recordings from its massive collection, reputed to be one of the largest sound archives in the world, available for free online (http://sounds.bl.uk). Rare, unpublished, and previously unavailable recordings have been launched online thanks to funding from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC; www.jisc.ac.uk) for BL's archival sound recordings project. The recordings, covering 2,000 hours of sound, are now online as part of JISC's digitization program, which has invested more than £22 million (about $36 million U.S.) in making available a wide range of heritage and scholarly resources of national importance.

All recordings in the Archival Sound Recordings project are available for free to licensed U.K. higher and further education institutions and can be accessed from BL reading rooms. In addition, where permission has been granted, these recordings can be listened to by the public online via the website. Music clips range from the lament of the organic gardener in Gloucestershire to songs in praise of oxen sung by Karamojong herders in remote villages of Northeastern Uganda, offering a glimpse of cultural experiences around the world.

Source: British Library