British Library Sound Archive

The British Library Sound Archive (formerly: British Institute of Recorded Sound ), based in London, is one of the world's largest sound archives .

Tape machines from the collection of the Sound Archive

history

The origins of the archive go back to 1905 when the British Museum (BM) started collecting phonograms. The British Gramophone Company helped build the collection with donations in kind. In 1955 the archivist Patrick Saul founded the British Institute of Recorded Sound. In 1983 the sound archive was incorporated into the British Library .

Duration

The more than sound recordings in the British Library Sound Archive include over 1 million CDs and thousands of tapes with recordings of the works of Nellie Melba , Enrico Caruso , Francesco Tamagno , Lev Tolstoy , Ernest Shackleton , Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Lewis Waller . The earliest known sound recording by Thomas Edison from 1877 is on display here. The recordings of Nelson Mandela's trial plea and individual speeches by Winston Churchill are also available. The BBC has given parts of its sound archive to the British Library Sound Archive, including a. also the radio recordings from Germany of the Reichstag sessions 1930–1942 . There are also over 100,000 animal voices in one of the world's largest vocal collections.

literature

• Marianne Beisecker: Information internship at the British Library. (PDF; 991 kB) Ruhr University Bochum , accessed on April 6, 2015 . 

See also

• German Music Archive (DMA) (for industrial sound carriers)
• German Broadcasting Archive (DRA) (for radio and television productions)

Web links

• British Library Sounds
• Help for researchers

Individual evidence

1. ^ About the British Library Sound Archive. Library homepage. Retrieved April 6, 2015.
2. ↑ Tierstimmen für Mobilys , derstandard.at , July 7, 2003. Accessed April 6, 2015.