Dear all,

It has been pointed out to me that the hyperlinks in the below message have not been functioning so I have now replaced them with good old fashioned URL’s.

Many thanks and apologies,

James Knight

***Apologies for cross-posting***

Huge thanks to anyone from this list who contributed to the British Library’s National Audit of UK Sound Collections. A report summarising the findings of the Audit and a Directory publishing the gathered data are now available here:

http://www.bl.uk/projects/uk-sound-directory

For those of you not familiar with this project an overview follows and you can read a blog post regarding the Audit, the Directory and what the next steps shall be on the BL’s Sound & Vision blog here:

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/sound-and-vision/2015/10/british-library-captures-the-largest-ever-snapshot-of-the-nations-recorded-audio-heritage.html

Many thanks once more to anyone who took the time to be a part of this project.

James Knight

Research Support Officer, National Audit of UK Sound Collections

---

Sound recordings help us to understand the world around us. They document the UK’s creative endeavours, preserve key moments in history, capture personal memories, and give a sense of local and regional identity.

But the nation’s sound collections are under threat, both from physical degradation and the disappearance of the technologies that support them.

To understand the risks facing the UK’s sound collections and to map the scale of the problem, in January of this year the British Library began work conducting a National Audit of UK Sound Collections as part of the Library’s ongoing Save Our Sounds programme:

http://www.bl.uk/projects/save-our-sounds

The purpose of the project was to gather information from sound collection holders across the UK about the condition, formats, extent, uniqueness and subject matter of their collections.

By being part of this project and contributing valuable information on collections in your care you have helped allow us to assess the state of the nation's recorded heritage and the risks it faces as well as inform our strategy for addressing these problems.

The Directory of UK Sound Collections

Over a period of 20 weeks (from January to May 2015), the National Audit of UK Sound Collections gathered information on 3,015 collections, from 488 collection holders, containing 1.9 million items.

The resulting Directory of UK Sound Collections can be downloaded as a PDF from the Directory of UK Sound Collections project page:

http://www.bl.uk/projects/uk-sound-directory

The Directory contains details for all collections whose holders agreed to share information on their holdings.

If you would like to obtain the data as .CSV file for research purposes please send a request to British Library reference services:

http://www.questionpoint.org/crs/servlet/org.oclc.admin.BuildForm?&institution=13425&type=1&language=1

Report on the National Audit of UK Sound Collections

A report describing the approach, methodology and analysing the results of the information gathered by the National Audit of UK Sound Collections can be downloaded from the Directory of UK Sound Collections project page:

http://www.bl.uk/projects/uk-sound-directory

What’s next?

This audit gathered information on 1.9 million recordings held in over 3,000 collections in less than five months. While not comprehensive, the results offer the most informed picture of the state of the nation’s sound collections ever collated and offer a resoundingly clear message - a message that the UK possess an invaluable wealth of recorded cultural memory that is under imminent threat from loss and decay.

Global professional consensus is that we have fifteen years in which to digitise historic sound recordings. By 2030, the scarcity of older equipment, the condition of recorded media and the loss of skills will make their preservation costly, difficult and, in many cases, impossible.

This problem doesn’t just apply to the National Sound Archive of over 6.5m recordings held at the British Library; it applies to the collections around the country that we have established information on by creating the Directory.

The challenge of preserving these sounds from such an imminent threat is the focus of the British Library’s Unlocking the UK’s Sound Heritage project:

http://www.bl.uk/press-releases/2015/may/save-our-sounds-hlf-funding

With the help of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Library will be able to digitise and publish online up to 500,000 rare and unique sounds from the Library’s own collections as well as using the results of the Directory to help preserve collection items from around the UK which are most at risk.

From 2017-2022 The British Library will then work with partner institutions to develop a national preservation network via ten regional centres of archival excellence that will digitise, preserve and share some of the unique, and nationally significant, audio heritage found in their local area as identified in this audit.

As well as helping foster professional skills in audio preservation these regional centres will help the British Library raise awareness throughout the nation of the serious and time sensitive task ahead by collaboratively implementing a major outreach program to schools and local communities to celebrate the UK’s sound heritage, and draw attention to the wealth of living history held in archives throughout the country.

For the many more collections that cannot be part of the project the British Library will publish advice online on caring for collections and helping spread relevant information to collection holders.

As part of the Library’s ongoing Living Knowledge vision:

http://www.bl.uk/projects/living-knowledge-the-british-library-2015-2023

we will aim to preserve as many as possible of the nation’s rare and unique sound recordings, and also to protect the future of our audio heritage, by improving the way in which we collect sounds digitally.