On January the 12th the British Library launched the Save our Sounds programme.

Since then we have been building a Directory of UK Sound Collections by gathering information from sound collection holders across the country about the condition, formats, extent, uniqueness and subject matter of their collections.

This valuable information will allow us to assess the state of the nation's recorded heritage and the risks it faces.

Project deadline extension

Since the last Directory update the response has been fantastic and, to date, we have received information on 925 individual collections totalling 838,473 individual items.

Due to the excellent response we are happy to announce that the deadline for submission of collection details has been extended to May 31st.

Taking part

If you have a sound collection, no matter how big or small, we would love to include it in our survey so please get in touch.

All informaton about how to submit collection information can be found on the Directory project page or you can email us on [email protected].

Promotion is vital to the success of the project so please help us to spread the word to any friends, relatives or colleagues you feel may be in possesion of a sound archive or collection.

You can follow the British Library Sound Archive on Twitter via @soundarchive and the project hashtag is #SaveOurSounds.

We know that there are many more collections out there and we would love to hear about them!

What we have discovered so far

The responses already received have provided great insight into the types of collection holders in the UK, the breadth of the subjects that their collections cover, the formats they are held on and what condition the collections are in. With this information, we can begin to assess the state of the nation’s sound collections and the risks they face.

Items reported, by format.

The above graph demonstrates the diversity of formats we have received information on ranging from wax phonograph cylinders and shellac discs to MiniDiscs and DATs. We will publish advice on the risks to and care of these different formats in a later blog post.

Collection highlights

We have received information on a huge range of subjects demonstrating the great wealth and diversity of the UK's sound collections including the following collections of interest:

Classical and Experimental Music

• Daphne Oram Archive: over 500 recordings of works by the pioneering British composer and electronic musician Daphne Oram (1925 - 2003), creator of the "Oramics" system, a technique used to create electronic sounds.
• Delia Derbyshire Archive: featuring over 267 tapes covering Derbyshire's time as a composer at the BBC's groundbreaking Radiophonic Workshop between 1962 and 1973.
• Centre for Russian Music Archive: an archive of over 500 recordings including notable material donated by the Glinka State Museum for Musical Culture in Moscow.

World and Traditional Music

• Kenneth A. Gourlay Archive: material relating to Gourlay's ethnomusicological research on the musical cultures of Uganda, Nigeria and Papua New Guinea.
• Bristol Record Office St Paul's Archive: recordings of performances spanning the history of the St. Paul’s carnival.
• Essex Record Office Traditional Music Archive: Over 1000 recordings of traditional and folk music played by Essex musicians or performed at Essex venues.

Drama and Literature

• Lily Greenham Collection: original tapes belonging to poet and experimental sound artist Lily Greenham (1924-2001).
• Bunnet-Muir Musical Theatre Trust Archive: over 11,000 audio recordings on cylinder, 78, 45 and 33 rpm records, cassettes, reel to reel, CD & piano rolls.
• The Rambert Archive: over 800 recordings created by the Rambert Dance Company through the process of the work the company produce.

Collection Subjects

Language and Dialect

• University of Cambridge Library Collections: including the Linguistic Survey of India collection.

Popular Music and Jazz

• Women's Revolutions Per Minute (WRPM) Archive: WRPM was set up in 1977 as part of the Women's Art Collective in London promoting festivals of music by women as part of the Women's Liberation Movement. 
• Dave Collett Blues Collection: recordings of the pianist for Acker Bilk band.

Radio

• BBC Essex Archive: Over 7,000 BBC Essex radio recordings including interviews, documentaries, outside broadcasts, news, sport, vox pops and phone-ins.
• George William Target Collection: Sound recordings of George William Target (1924-2005), writer and religious commentator. Includes a recording of Desert Island Discs and Target's contribution to the Today programme's feature 'Thought for Today'.

Heatmap showing collection  locations.

Speeches and events

• Cumbria Local History Archive: speeches made during the 1951 General Election campaign by Walter Monslow, Clement Atlee; Speeches made at CND meetings and rallies in Barrow-in-Furness 1984-1985 including Bruce Kent, Captain James Bush (USA), Joan Ruddock, Michael Foot MP, Japanese speakers from Hiroshima.

News

• Ronald Sturt & Talking Newspapers for the Blind: recordings relating to Ronald Sturt's life and involvement with Talking Newspapers for the Blind, 1970-2002.

Oral History

• Manchester Jewish Museum Archive: 716 recordings from the early 1970s onwards containing interviews with first, second and third generation Jewish immigrants and providing unique anecdotal evidence of the mass migration of Eastern European Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
• Ambleside Oral History Archive: An ongoing oral history project which began in 1978 and has recorded the lives and times of over 450 people born in the Lake District from 1877 onwards.

Natural Sounds

• British Trust for Ornithology Archive: over 780 recordings of ornithological interest including a copy of a set of BBC recordings made in the early 1960s.
• RIDGEWAYsounds: field recordings and mixed soundscapes made by participants of Seasonal Sound Walks and Sounds of the Neolithic on the South Dorset Ridgeway.

The British Library's Directory of UK Sound Collections is one of the first steps in our Save our Sounds programme; one of the key strands of Living Knowledge, the British Library's new vision and purpose for its future.

Digital technologies have transformed the ways in which we create and store recorded sound.  Until recently, sound recording and reproduction has relied on media like tapes, discs and cassettes, and the technologies to access those media in appropriate ways.  Today, these media have been replaced with digital storage systems, allowing us to create recordings in greater numbers, to store them more efficiently, and to provide access to them more effectively.

But this transition from physical to digital highlights one of the key issues facing custodians of recorded sound collections: as older media disappear and industry support for replaying them evaporates, how can we ensure that sounds remain accessible to future generations?

A degrading cellulose nitrate lacquer disc in the collections of the British Library

Professional consensus internationally is that we have approximately 15 years in which to save our sound collections by digitising them before they become unreadable and are effectively lost. These risks face all recorded sound collections, across the country; from home recordings to professional archives.

Just this month, internet pioneer Vint Cerf was widely reported as warning that digital information can too easily be lost because accessing it may require specialised software unavailable in the future.  This is something which presents a challenge to the digital preservation of many media. Fortunately, for audio, this problem is - to a degree - solved: digitising a sound recording to an internationally recognised, standard file format (in this case, WAV) aids longevity, because the file structure is well documented and simple to understand.

Save our Sounds

On 12^th January, the British Library launched a new initiative titled Save our Sounds: a vital programme recognising the risks facing the nation’s sound collections, and the urgent need to preserve our recorded heritage.

One of the major aims of this programme is to digitally preserve as much as possible of the UK’s rare and unique sound recordings; not just those in our collections but also key items from partner collections.

But digitisation takes time, and preservation planning on such a scale requires a clear understanding of the extent of collections; their subjects, uniqueness, and – importantly - what formats they are held on.

Surveying the UK’s Sound Collections

To help us understand the risks faced by the UK’s recorded heritage, the British Library is running a project to create a Directory of UK Sound Collections.  Through a nationwide survey which continues until 31^st March 2015, we have set out to reach and encourage as many collection owners as possible – from individuals with personal collections to large institutions – to send us information about the recordings they hold.

Graph showing number of items identified, per format

The responses received since the launch of our project have provided a fascinating insight into the types of collection holders in the UK, the breadth of the subjects that their collections cover, and the formats they are held on. With this information, we can build a clearer picture of the state of the nation’s recorded sound collections, the risks they face and the scale of the task ahead, if they are to be saved.

To date, we have received information on more than 320,000 items, from wax cylinders and lacquer discs to CD-Rs and MiniDiscs.

The recordings on these items cover a range of subjects, indicative of the diversity of the UK’s collections, including:

• Vast collections of oral histories, including interviews with nurses, veterans, evacuees, women potters, Jewish refugees, London dock workers, taxi drivers and policemen, travellers, immigrant communities, Yorkshire dalesfolk, and theatre workers.
• Home recordings made on wires and wax cylinders in the early part of the 20th century
• More than 15,000 UK shellac discs of British dance bands and early jazz recordings
• Recordings of English and Scottish folk musicians, from the mid-20^th century
• Sound art and experimental music from the 1960s to the present day
• Representative collections of classical music performances on shellac disc
• Speech and dialect recordings, calendar customs and traditions from across the UK
• BBC and Radio Luxembourg transmissions, including light music programmes from the 1950s and 60s, and personal collections from radio broadcasters and producers working in the UK
• Street noises and environmental sounds
• British bird song recorded in the field
• Interviews with and performances by composers, musicians, authors and politicians, including Winston Churchill, J.B. Priestley and J.R.R. Tolkien
• Recordings of speeches, conferences, ceremonies, lectures and events from throughout the 20^th century

Graph showing collection subjects, by type

Of course, there are many more collections out there, and we’d love to hear about them. We'll be publishing a summary report later in the year, and advice on caring for your collections.

So, if you have a sound collection – or even a single item – that you would like to add to our directory, please get in touch.  And promotion really is vital to the success of our project, so if you know someone who might be interested, do pass the message on.

You can follow the British Library Sound Archive on Twitter via @soundarchive and tag with #SaveOurSounds

The British Library’s Directory of UK Sound Collections is one of the first steps in our Save our Sounds programme; one of the key strands of Living Knowledge, the British Library’s new vision and purpose for its future.

Amongst the literary treasures held in the basements of the British Library sits an extraordinary collection of sounds.  From recordings of extinct species, voices from the past, to music across all genres, the British Library’s sound archive is held on more than 1.5 million physical items, just waiting to be heard.

But all of these recordings, from those made on the earliest wax cylinders to contemporary CD-Rs, face a real and immediate threat.

Edison 'Concert' wax cylinders in the collections of the British Library

Within 15 years, the combination of physical degradation and the disappearance of the technologies that support physical media will make accessing the nation’s sound archive difficult, and in many cases impossible.  Without taking steps to preserve these recordings now, they will be lost.

These risks face all recorded sound collections, across the country; from boxes of forgotten cassette recordings to professional archives.

To understand the risks facing the UK’s sound collections, the British Library has initiated a project to collect information about our recorded heritage, to create a Directory of UK Sound Collections.

By telling us what you have, we can understand more about the breadth of the nation’s collections and the risks that they face, and this will help us plan for their preservation, for future generations.

Our aim is to be comprehensive; to search out sounds that exist in libraries, archives, museums, galleries, schools and colleges, charities, societies, businesses and in your homes.  And we’re not just interested in large collections: a single item might be just as important as a whole archive.   

So if you think you might have a rare or unique collection of sounds, or just a recording that should be preserved, let us know!

The census is live now and will run until the end of March 2015.  You can read more about the project, and send us information about your collections here: www.bl.uk/projects/uk-sound-directory

Responses have already started to come in, and we’ll be publishing updates on the project, and some of the things we’ve found on this blog, so enter your email address and click the Subscribe button at the top of this page to receive notifications by email.

The British Library’s Directory of UK Sound Collections is one of the first steps in our Save our Sounds programme; one of the key strands of Living Knowledge, the British Library’s new vision and purpose for its future.

You can follow the British Library Sound Archive on Twitter via @soundarchive and tag with #SaveOurSounds

Related articles

Save our Sounds: 15 years to save the UK's sound collections

Over the past few months we've been working on a very special project that sets out to record and document the fascinating experiences of British wildlife sound recordists, from the scientist to the hobbyist, and everyone in between. Interviews with Wildlife Sound Recordists explores all aspects of wildlife sound recording, from childhood memories and early encounters with nature to changes in recording technology, recording expeditions and the role natural sounds have played in the lives of our interviewees.

Inspired by the British Library's Oral History department and following on from the wonderful Interviews with ethnomusicologists collection, launched last year by colleagues in World and Traditional Music, this initial foray into the world of oral history has cemented a new-found appreciation in the wildlife section for the importance of collecting personal accounts. Already evolving into an important and unique resource for both present and future generations of researchers, this collection will provide great insight into areas such as the history of sound recording, natural history broadcasting, the scientific field of bioacoustics and how lifelong relationships with nature can be formed through the medium of sound.

Despite having only 7 interviews under our belt so far, connections are already beginning to emerge, whether that be in the form of similar experiences, shared friendships and colleagues or a likeminded approach to the subject.  In equal measure, the interviews also demonstrate the various ways in which our interviewees have found themselves involved with wildlife sound recording.

Former BBC sound recordist David Tombs with a homemade microphone

Two of the interviews shed light on the academic life of a wildlife sound recordist, with primatologist Dr David Chivers and anthropolgist Professor Simon Bearder lending their stories to the collection. The field of bioacoustics, or the study of acoustic communication in animals, has been an important strain of zoological research for decades. From the early experiments of Professor William Thorpe, who demonstrated through the analysis of sound recordings that birdsong is learnt rather than inherent, to the discovery of new species and even improving our understanding of the evolution of human language, this area of science has significantly increased our understanding of the natural world.

Recording the experiences of scientists working in this field is one of the key aims of this project. In the following extract, Professor Simon Bearder describes his early involvement in the study of Bushbaby vocalisations at the University of Johannesburg.

Simon Bearder_early research into Bushbaby vocalisations

One of the most important interviews in the collection is with the co-founder of the British Library's wildlife collection, Patrick Sellar. A lifelong fascination with sound coupled with a deep love of nature and a good level of dogged determination saw him become a key figure in the wildlife sound recording community, both in the UK and beyond. Here Patrick speaks about the formation of the British Library's collection of wildlife sound recordings with BBC radio producer Jeffery Boswall.

Patrick Sellar_formation of the British Library's wildlife collection

Patrick also speaks about what he has learnt from a lifetime of wildlife sound recording.

Patrick Sellar_lessons from wildlife sound recording

Two of the interviews cover the experiences of former BBC sound recordists. Here Nigel Tucker recalls a BBC expedition to the USA to record the voice of the north American songbird Phainopepla with fellow recordist David Tombs.

Nigel Tucker_recording expedition to the USA

Field recordist Mark Peter Wright, our interviewer for the project, describes how an oral history training course at the British Library sparked an idea that has proven to be an incredibly effective tool in encouraging recordists to recount specific recording experiences:

Following a classic oral history method of having the participant talk around a physical photograph, I decided to try something similar through sound. I asked each recordist to prepare sound files from their archive that were in some way memorable to them. During the interview we would playback these recordings and talk through the audible and non-audible contexts behind the record.

For me, this process was one of the most insightful and fascinating experiences of the project. Playing back sounds from a personal archive whilst the recordist recalls memories from the experience felt, to me, like a very active use of archival material. It brought past and present into one space as recordists literally spoke with and through their recordings and memories.  

In the following clip, former BBC sound engineer David Tombs plays a recording of Red-throated Divers in Shetland while discussing his memory of the experience.

David Tombs_Red-throated Divers

The 7 interviews presented today represent just the beginning of what we hope will be an ongoing oral history project. Over time, Interviews with Wildlife Sound Recordists will develop into a comprehensive collection offering unique and diverse accounts of a genre of sound recording that has contributed so much to scientific research, education and a greater appreciation of the natural world.

Organisations from across Europe visited the British Library on 17 - 18 February to mark the launch of the Europeana Sounds project (more information about the project). The three-year project is being coordinated by the British Library, and we were delighted to be able to welcome all the delegates who made the journey to London, braving the typically wet February weather.

image: British Library/Elizabeth Hunter CC-BY-SA

Europeana Sounds will use innovative digital technology to improve access to some of Europe’s leading collections of sounds and related material. The event was therefore an opportunity to meet face-to-face to discuss just what sort of inventive strategies will be adopted in order to enrich the audiences’ experience of the wealth of recordings that will be made available through the project’s life-span and beyond.

Many fruitful discussions occurred over the two days. Of particular interest was the issue of licensing material in order to provide as much access as possible, whilst ensuring that content providing institutions feel that the material in their custody is sufficiently protected. Indeed, in the case of recordings of ‘traditional’ or ‘ceremonial’ music that may contain culturally sensitive material, this will need to be taken into account in the same way that legal consideration must be adhered to.

Whilst there is a great deal of expertise amongst the project partners, this sense of balance could not be achieved without an engaged and enthusiastic audience. Fortunately, we will be working with the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision and Historypin to engage different communities and to enrich the project’s metadata through crowdsourcing and edit-a-thons. In turn, this will make it easier for end-users to find what they are looking for. This focus on usability will be augmented by the development of thematic channels on the Europeana portal, and through other digital sound sharing platforms, Spotify and SoundCloud.

Those attending the meeting were reminded of the joy of listening and of discovering new sounds by the two ‘concert’ sessions, where selected partners presented recordings from their archives.

Janet Topp Fargion of the British Library selected this recording of a Sora ancestor song to illustrate the fact that although Europeana aggregates digital objects held in European institutions, the subjects may be international, reflecting the research interests of scholars and users based in Europe.

Sora ancestor song

(Recorded by Rolf Killius, Orissa, India, 2001. Source: The British Library)

Mairead Dhòmhnallach of Tobar an Dulchais presented 'Latha Dhomh ’s mi Buain a’ Choirce' as sung by Kate MacMillan. It is a recording of a traditional Gaelic, one of thousands that will be made available through Europeana thanks to the project.

Latha Dhomh ’s mi Buain a’ Choirce

(Recorded by John Lorne Campbell, Scotland, 1949. Source: The National Trust for Scotland)

Zane Grosa from the National Library of Latvia shared this recording, the only surviving work of orchestral music by Latvian composer Emils Dārziņš. He destroyed his other symphonic works after being accused of plagiarism, and ended his life when he was just 34, apparently throwing himself under the train.

Melanholiskais valsis

(Source: National Library of Latvia)

Alexander König of the Max Planck Institute for Pyscholinguistics gave us this field recording, made in the village of Tauwema in the Trobriand Islands as part of a project to document the Kilivila language. This example serves to highlight that Europeana Sounds will work with environmental and linguistic, as well as musical, material.

Tauwema Village

(Recorded by Gunter Senft, Tauwema, Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea, 2003. Source: Max Planck Institute for Pyscholinguistics)

Europeana Sounds is funded by the European Union under its ICT Policy Support Programme as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programm.

In November 1912, Thomas Edison released what became the last word in mass-produced cylinder technology – his four minute Blue Amberol series. These cylinders started to appear in the United Kingdom in February 1913 although cylinders of various other types had been around for more than twenty years. It’s a common presumption that phonographs were owned only by the rich, but they were mass-produced: in 1913 there were a million cylinder players in use in the United States of America. 

What would the soundtrack to Christmas in England have been like one hundred years ago?

It’s December 1913. You step into a shop to buy something for Christmas, something that everyone will enjoy. You’d like to fill your home with the wonder of recorded music.

In August 1913 the magazine The Phono Record reported that war has been declared. The record industry is booming and there are a number of record labels competing for your business: Besttone, Dacapo, Empire, Exo, Mignon, National, Odeon, Pathé, Zonophone and Columbia to name just a few. The gramophone is in fashion, and everyone is telling you that discs are the future, but your mind is made up: you’re buying an Edison cylinder phonograph to play the new Blue Amberols. 

Your neighbour upgraded for the similarly named, four minute wax Amberol series about a year ago, but you didn’t fancy those at the time. Even though he says they are the ultimate in cylinder technology, you think they sacrifice sound quality for more playing time; they seem too quiet, wear out quickly and are so incredibly brittle that they often self-destruct while playing. You’re glad you waited patiently for the next format, where wax is swapped for celluloid - he’ll have to re-buy the same releases on Blue Amberol if he wants to get top sound quality. 

Listen to the The Singer Was Irish by Peter Dawson, first issued on Black Amberol in November 1910, but recently digitised from a Blue Amberol at the British Library.

The Singer Was Irish (1CYL0001641)

Blue Amberols, even in a hundred years time, will be recognised as having been at the pinnacle of cylinder technology. The old Edison standards (two-minute black wax cylinders) which are still available, are noisy and play for only a little over two minutes. Hear for yourself:

A Christmas Ghost Story (1CYL0002319)

These new ones play for an unbelievable four minutes! Each one is dyed a brilliant blue to lower the surface noise and can be played 3,000 times – they’re "virtually indestructible". In the loudness wars, they win too.

In the shop the assistant has been reading his Edison Phonograph Monthly and is armed with the tactics to relieve you of the £9.9s.0d you’ve saved up. You’ve chosen a nice new Amberola VIII  in golden oak which has an internal horn, as do all modern Edison phonographs.  Now you just have to choose the cylinder records. The blue cylindrical cartons with Thomas Edison’s face all look the same and each one has a tiny stamp on it – the copyright act came into effect last year.  

Edison believes sound quality rather than artist's fame should be the key to selling records, so they don’t feature heavily on the packaging. There is a mere mention on the lid and a category - ‘Christmas song’ or 'Bell solo' - however, on the record slip inside the carton, there is much written about composers and an "if you liked this then you’ll like that" recommendation.

Waltzing Doll (1CYL0000039)

The assistant allows you to try out some of the records available on the lists before you make your purchase. The current catalogue is made up of sentimental American releases and instrumental ‘solos’ – bells, whistling and other instruments with an orchestral backing. These are for the most part recorded at Edison’s studio in New Jersey, but there’s also a small selection of English special releases - about fifteen on each month’s list.  Speeches and extracts from books, and even a ‘School’ series with titles such as ‘Ten problems in measurements’ are also available. 

Choose carefully - within the year war will be declared, and the list will be taken over by patriotic songs and forget-there’s-a-war-on specials.  In October 1914 war-time legislation will impose a tax of 33.3% on both cylinder players and records and by 21 March 1916 you won’t be able to buy any of the latest New Jersey-made records due to the import ban on cylinder players and records.

Here’s a selection of releases that were available in December 1913:

From the English list -

Christmas At Sea (1CYL0001641)

Blue Amberol 23150 Christmas at Sea, National Military Band. Recorded in London; available only on Blue Amberol.

Sweet Christmas Bells (1CYL0001648)

Blue Amberol 23143 Sweet Christmas Bells (Shattuck), Ernest Pike and Peter Dawson. Originally released on (wax) Amberol 12100; recorded in London, December 1909.

Why Don't Santa Claus Bring Something To Me? (1CYL0002080)

Blue Amberol 23146 Why Don’t Santa Claus Bring Something To Me? (Williams / Godfrey), Billy Williams. Originally released on (wax) Amberol 12499; recorded in London, October 1912.

Scrooge's Awakening (1CYL0001205)

Blue Amberol 23139 Scrooge’s Awakening (Dickens – A Christmas Carol), Bransby Williams and Edison Carol Singers. Originally released on (wax) Amberol 12378; recorded in London, December 1911.

From the American list -

When I Get You Alone Tonight (1CYL0001245)

Blue Amberol 1602 When I Get You Alone Tonight (McCarthy /Goodwin / Fisher), Billy Murray. Recorded in New York, October 1912.

Jere Sandford's Whistling and Yodeling Special (1CYL0001259)

Blue Amberol 1988 Jere Sanford’s Whistling and Yodeling Special. Originally released (wax) Amberol 523; recorded in New York, October 1910.

Dixie Medley (1CYL0000366)

Blue Amberol 1532 Dixie Medley, Fred Van Eps. Originally released on (wax) Amberol 4M 804; recorded in New York, October 1911.

Blue Amberol cylinders are one of the many audio formats digitised at the British Library Centre for Conservation. This is done through a one-of-a-kind electrical cylinder player (similar to a record player) but in 1913 they would have been played back on a wind-up phonograph. Phonographs acoustically amplify, through a horn, vibrations caused in a diaphragm made by the movement of a stylus through a groove. The records played on them were recorded in the same way: microphones did not come into use in recording studios until the 1920's.

You can listen to more wax cylinders in British Library Reading Rooms by browsing the the Sound and Moving Image Catalogue between call numbers 1CYL0000001 and 1CYL0003000. The British Library's collection of ethnographic wax cylinders is available to listeners online.

Written by sound engineer Eve Anderson who is currently digitising wax cylinders at the British Library.

A recording of Nelson Mandela’s remarkable speech delivered during the notorious Rivonia Trial of 1963-4, frequently quoted since his death last night at the age of 95, was heard for the first time in 2001 thanks to the British Library.

Speaking from the dock on 20 April 1964 during the Trial in Pretoria’s Palace of Justice, Mandela gave a spellbinding three-hour speech in his defence. Mandela (‘Accused Number One’) was charged with acts of sabotage designed to ‘foment violent revolution’.

His defiant closing words -

“the ideal of a free and democratic society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities…is an ideal for which I am prepared to die”

were widely reported in print and sent shockwaves around the world, leading to worldwide condemnation of South Africa’s racial policies. Mandela escaped the death penalty, but began a life sentence at Robben Island prison in June 1964. He was not released until 11 February 1990.

In 2000, during a visit to South Africa, a chance conversation between the British Library’s Oral History Curator Rob Perks and colleagues at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and the National Archives of South Africa revealed that rare ‘Dictabelt’ recordings of the trial existed, but that no means had been found to replay or transfer the sound. Knowing that the British Library’s Sound Archive still owned one of the rare recorders, Rob offered to make the transfers.

Loaned to the British Library, these dictabelt recordings are
preserved in the National Archives of South Africa

Seven of the blue Dictabelts were loaned to the British Library and later returned to the custodianship of the National Archives of South Africa who retain all copyright in them. Discovering that the belts had been recorded at lower than normal speed in order to extend the recording time, Sound Archive audio engineers Peter Copeland and Adrian Tuddenham modified the Sound Archive’s Dictabelt machine to allow correct playback speed, which could be determined from low level mains hum, inadvertently recorded onto the belts at the time. By replaying the hum at the correct pitch it follows that the recording itself was replayed at the correct pitch. They also found they had to apply heat to the belts to smooth out the creases and allow playback with minimal groove-jumping.

The sound was then passed to Sound Archive engineer Nigel Bewley, who corrected the frequency response, carefully edited the sound to repair the groove-jumps and the reduced the surface noise using CEDAR (Computer Enhanced Audio Restoration). The resultant audio quality is remarkably clear considering the recording technology used, allowing Mandela’s speech to be heard again for the first time since the Trial.

The Rivonia Trial of 1963-4, one of the most important political trials of the twentieth century, marked a turning point in South Africa’s history and the struggle against apartheid. Attracting huge international attention at the time, ‘Rivonia’ led to the world-wide condemnation of South Africa’s racial policies.

On 9 October 1963 at the Palace of Justice in Pretoria, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Dennis Goldberg, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Lionel Bernstein, Raymond Mhlaba, James Kantor, Andrew Mlangeni and Elias Motsoaledi - leading members of the African National Congress (ANC) - were charged under the General Law Amendment (Sabotage) Act and the Suppression of Communism Act with acts of sabotage designed to foment ‘violent revolution’ and overthrow the state. Named ‘Rivonia’ after the Johannesburg suburb where sixteen ANC leaders had been arrested in July 1963, the full trial began on 3 December 1963 and culminated on 12 June 1964 in life sentences for eight of the accused. Nelson Mandela was the last to be released on 11 February 1990 after 27 years in jail.

Rob Perks, Lead Curator of Oral History

Listen to audio clips recovered from the 1964 dictabelts

Audio extracts from NSA C985, transferred by the British Library from the Dictabelt originals loaned by The National Archives of South Africa and © The National Archives of South Africa.

20 April 1964, Nelson Mandela.

01 Defence Council, Bram Fischer; end of opening remarks; Prosecutor Percy Yutar; Justice De Wet; Nelson Mandel, beginning of his statement from the dock

 02 Nelson Mandela; the ANC and guerrilla warfare

 03 Nelson Mandela; communism; African poverty

 04 Nelson Mandela; the effects of white supremacy

 05 Nelson Mandela; closing remarks _ it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die_

Cheryl Tipp, Natural Sounds Curator writes:

Over the past 5 weeks, listeners of BBC Radio 4 have been treated to a series dedicated entirely to sound and its many roles in human culture over the past 100,000 years. Noise: a Human History, written and presented by Professor David Hendy and made in collaboration with the British Library's Sound Archive, has explored a multitude of subjects, from the power of great orators to the significance of resonant spaces.

Episode 25, Capturing Sound, looks at new technologies that emerged during the latter half of the 19th Century, making it possible to record and thereby transform sound from something previously transient and elusive.

The British Library has an extensive collection of both early recordings and the equipment used to record and playback these sounds. Many of the earliest machines in the collection were the inventions of Thomas Edison, the first person to design a device that could both record and playback the captured sounds.

Edison Home Phonograph (1900)

Over 350 images of recording and playback equipment from 1877 to the end of the 20th Century can be explored in the Sound Recording History section of British Library Sounds. The site also contains over 600 early spoken word recordings that bring together the voices of sportsmen, explorers, writers, politicians and even royalty.

Don Bradman, Australian cricketer - How it's Done

Amy Johnson, pioneer aviator - The Story of my Flight 

Christabel Pankhurst, suffragette and co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union - Suffrage for Women

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States of America - Address to the Congress of the United States, 8 December 1941

This varied collection is drawn from commercial cylinders and 78rpm discs that date from the earliest days of recorded sound to the late 1950s, when LPs became the standard format for the record industry. Many of the recordings have never been reissued.

Noise: A Human History is broadcast on weekdays at 13:45 on BBC Radio 4, with a special omnibus edition at 21:00 on Fridays. All episodes broadcast so far are available on iPlayer Radio.