British Library seeks £40 million to save vast sound archive

The British Library has launched a campaign to raise £40 million to digitise its sound archive.

The archive is a truly mind-boggling asset, home to more than six million recordings of everything from local dialects and birdsong to theatre productions and the voice of Florence Nightingale. It’s a treasure trove for artists like Matthew Herbert, who last year recorded a special Boiler Room set using a selection of audio from the archive, from bats and woodworms to grandfather clocks.

The problem is, around a third of the collection – two million recordings – is at risk of being lost due to physical degradation and obsolete playback technology. The archive includes audio on more than 40 formats, from wax cylinders to cassette players and minidiscs, most of which are no longer widely used. The British Library estimates it needs to spend £18 million to digitise the most “at risk” recordings and to build the facilities needed to digitise the rest.

The remaining £22 million will be used to develop a system to digitally archive the UK’s sound output in the future. According to BBC News, the library reckons that 92% of the UK’s current radio output, and 65-70% of the UK’s published music output, is not being fully archived.

As well as launching the fundraiser, the library is also asking the public if they know about any rare or unique sound collections – so if you’ve got a garage full of field recordings from Snowdonia, get in touch.

Watch Matthew Herbert’s Boiler Room show from the British Library below.

 

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