Sound and vision blog

Since autumn 2015, the British Library Sound Archive has hosted Aleks Kolkowski and Larry Achiampong as composers in residence through Sound & Music's Embedded Residency scheme. Larry and Aleks will be performing live on Tuesday 12 July at 18:30 as a way of showcasing their progress in the first half of the residency. You can book your free tickets here but space is limited!

Embedded is a Sound and Music creative development programme funded by The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the PRS for Music Foundation which places composers from a range of disciplines into extended relationships with leading national organisations.

The 12 month residency is an ideal duration for the British Library Sound Archive to host artists, allowing them to engage with the rhythm of the archive, far from the immediacy with which the digital domain has accustomed us to consuming music. In an archive, the journey a listener takes with a sound recording – often on an analogue carrier – can be as long and circuitous as the initial route taken to make the recording.

In their collaborative live performance, Larry and Aleks will draw upon their respective explorations of the sound collections whilst also demonstrating historic sound recording formats, such as wax cylinders, 78rpm, acetate and vinyl records on phonographs and gramophones in combination with contemporary beat making machines and electro-acoustic manipulations.

The artists have seen what takes place 'behind the scenes' during their residency at the sound archive

During the residency, Aleks Kolkowski has been focussing on early cylinder recordings and the Bishop Collection, which gathers the sound effects made for theatre by the Bishop Sound and Electrical Company which operated in Soho during the the 1940s and ‘50s. Kolkowski’s work engages with Save our Sounds, the Library's programme to preserve the nation's sound heritage by playfully employing analogue technology and obsolete formats in a contemporary setting. His impressions about creating work within the sound archive give us some insight into what sorts of sounds and artefacts he has been exposed to:

I was prepared for the vastness of the sound collections and familiar with some of the categories but there are always plenty of surprises, many brought to light by the curators. The quantity of home recordings, for instance, dating back to the early 1900s on cylinders is very impressive and are a delight to listen too, as are the domestic open reel magnetic tapes and acetate discs from the 1950s such as the A.W.E. Perkins Collection. To listen to these voices and sounds from the past is to experience social history brought alive. I am also very taken with the large collection of broken records that brings out both the audio archaeologist and the hands-on experimenter in me. I would love to spend time piecing these rare recordings back together and rescuing their sounds, or playfully rearranging them in the style of Milan Knízák’s Broken Music.

Larry Achiampong, an artist with a background in visual arts, has been developing a new body of work stemming from two previous projects, which explore his Ghanaian heritage. ‘Meh Mogya’, which means 'my blood' in Twi, a Ghanaian language, and ‘More Mogya’, meaning ‘more blood’, are the origin for his current exploration of field recordings from wider West Africa. He was particularly inspired by the selection of music present in the recent British Library exhibition West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song and will be re-mixing excerpts in his performance. As part of his residency, Larry participated in Ghana Beats, one of the ‘Late at the British Library’ events alongside artists such as Yaaba Funk and Volta 45.

The Swiss-made "Mikiphone", patented in 1924, is the smallest talking machine ever placed on the market and is part of the sound archive's artefact collection

Beyond Embedded, the sound archive is committed to supporting the creation of new work by artists, composers, academics, record labels, and curators. Through annual opportunities such as the Edison Fellowship or one-off commissions, we guide listeners through our collections and enable new research and creative practices, such as with Hidden Traces. This installation functions as an audio map of the Kings Cross area, layering interviews with local residents and archival recordings from King’s Cross Voices interviews to create a narrated journey that reveals how the area has changed. Realised by choreographer and urbanist Gabriele Reuter and sound designer Mattef Kuhlmey, it was commissioned by The Place and supported by the British Library.

The British Library Sound Archive has been pivotal to various artistic productions since its origins in 1955 as the British Institute of Recorded Sound, including Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. In 1983, Martin Scorsese discussed ideas for the musical soundtrack of his film with musician Peter Gabriel, who recently described how the National Sound Archive was crucial to the creation of this soundtrack –

In my research for Passion, many people mentioned the wonderful resources in the NSA (National Sound Archive) and in particular introduced me to Lucy Duran, who both understood what I was hoping to achieve and made lots of great suggestions. Scorsese had asked for a new type of score that was neither ancient nor modern, that was not a pastiche but had clear references to the region, traditions and atmospheres, but was in itself a living thing. 

The soundtrack, which was further developed and released as the album Passion on his record label Real World Records in 1989, brought together Middle Eastern and North African traditions and included appearances by musicians like Baaba Maal, Jon Hassell, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Bill Cobham who were just becoming big names in the world music genre.

Peter Gabriel’s creative process for the soundtrack and album is captured in a compilation record entitled Passion – Sources, which was released shortly after Passion, also by Real World Records. This album includes the “sources of inspiration” – some of the recordings of traditional music he listened to at the National Sound Archive alongside location recordings made during the filming process. For Gabriel, the archive is still a relevant source of inspiration: “There is so much great stuff there, most of which you can’t reach by googling.”

The inexhaustibility of the archive makes it an ideal setting for creation, limited only by the time and patience it can take to search and listen through the sound recordings available. Through the Embedded residency the Sound Archive is able to support the creative process of contemporary artists, acknowledging the ways in which past works can be explicitly influential. The mobile process of creating original work is given new possibilities within the archive, a unique opportunity to work amongst one’s sources, and engage with them in greater depth. As the sound recordings in the archive are re-contextualised into new events and compositions, their meaning is extended and their historicity brought into the present.

During the summer of 2015, the British Library, the National Trust and the National Trust for Scotland invited members of the public to record and share their favourite coastal sounds. Sounds of our Shores focused on the entire coastline of the United Kingdom, from the Isles of Scilly to Orkney, and received more than 650 submissions over 3 months covering natural history, entertainment, transport and industry.

As part of the project, the National Trust commissioned musician and producer Joe Acheson to create a composition inspired by the history and nature of Cornwall's Lizard Peninsula and Guglielmo Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Station. Here Joe writes about the experience.

Lizard Point is the most southerly point of the UK mainland. In 1900 radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi built a hut there to experiment with sending radio signals over long distances. Marconi’s hut received the first ever ship-to-shore SOS signal.

Last summer I spent a week on the Lizard as part of the National Trust’s first ever sound artist residency. My new EP, Marconi and the Lizard, was the product of that summer residency.

I spent a sunny day on The Lizard in June 2015, and luckily recorded a nice dawn chorus in the best season. The week when I returned in August saw almost constant heavy rain, high winds, and regular storms, with foghorns and big waves; all great sounds but they make recording outdoors difficult. Whenever there was a break in the weather I set off on a bike with a bag of microphones to find sheltered coves and fields, ducking behind stone walls and boulders to record crickets in the long grass away from the strong wind, and clambering around slippery cliffs and rocky shorelines trying to get clean recordings of birds, streams and waterfalls.

The EP features the natural sounds of the Cornish coastline - wind, sea, grass, insects, birds, rain and waves. They’re combined with man-made sounds, like the sculpting of the rare local Serpentine stone on a lathe, launching the RNLI lifeboat, weaving lobster pots, lighthouse and ship foghorns, stacking empty 'bongos' (large plastic containers for storing fish on a boat) and fishermen chatting over radio out in the bay.

© Steven Haywood, the National Trust.

The rest of the sounds come from inside Marconi's hut or over the airwaves - vintage spark transmitters and morse code receivers, lots of radio noises picked up through aerials on his historic sites at Lizard Point and Poldhu, and a few archive recordings from local sound and radio enthusiasts such as a radio transmission from an amateur satellite in orbit, reporting back its temperature and battery status in a robotic voice.

I have taken all these recordings and sifted through them, like searching through old records looking for a sample, waiting to hear a pitched sound I can use for harmonies and basslines, and rhythmic fragments that can be extrapolated into pulsing layers of textures and beats.

Some of the sounds on the album have recently disappeared from the Lizard, like the old lighthouse foghorn that has been replaced by a long electronic beep that bounces around the cliff-faces. I was the last to record the now-decommissioned spark transmitter in the Marconi museum.

The sounds have been minimally treated so that they mostly remain identifiable as a raven, a cricket, a spark or a gust of wind. Some sounds only reveal their musical qualities when slowed down - like the meadow stream which at half speed unveils melodic patterns of tiny pitched droplets. Despite the fact that there are no sounds created by synthesisers or computers, the music sounds quite electronic - probably because I didn't set out to make abstract soundscapes; I like finding patterns and rhythms and combining them to create music with pulse and energy.

On the Lizard I discovered that most of the natural sounds have complementary tempos and pitches, which fit together naturally at their original speed. It’s similar to how birds have evolved their unique calls to remain distinctive in the cacophony of a dawn chorus, with each species taking up their own tiny bandwidth of the frequency spectrum and using complex rhythms to further stand out in the soundscape.

Like the food philosophy 'what grows together goes together', nature has evolved its own sound mix.

Marconi and the Lizard (TruThoughts) can be downloaded in full at http://hiddenorchestra.bandcamp.com/album/marconi-the-lizard.

The Story of the Tiger Hunt' was part of a short-lived series of educational records for children, produced between 1919-1921 by the Emerson Phonograph Company under license from the Talking Book Corporation of New York. The majority of these records had an animal theme and were presented as colourful, die cut illustrations with a small record attached to the centre. The disc contained a short story or rhyme while the back of the cardboard carrier contained further information about the featured animal and a transcript of the record. The entire package was placed directly on the turntable when played.

The series was announced in the May 1919 issue of Talking Machine World and proudly stated that these animal records "have an educational value that can hardly be overestimated." Clarity was of the utmost importance so only voice actors with the very best diction were used:

"Elocutionists of note and merit make these talking records, so that the child's ear is attuned to perfection of sound from infancy".

Almost a century later, the clear style of delivery from the un-named actor can still be heard beneath the crackle of time. The "educational value" of 'The Story of the Tiger Hunt' is hard to understand however, yet encapsulates the attitudes towards this species at the turn of the 20th century.

The Story of the Tiger Hunt, Talking Book Corporation 1919

Crouched in tall jungle grass,
Above the rocky pass,
Lashing his snaky tail
The Tiger guards his trail.

The distant hunters come - 
Hark to the tom-tom's drum!
What mighty beasts they ride
With tough and leather hide!
Who trumpets there I wonder?
The elephants deep thunder!

Close to his lair they go,
Beware! He crouches low;
Hear his fierce purring growl!
List how the natives howl!
Ready with gun and spear!
Strike, when The Stripes appear!
Look out! The monster springs!
Quick! Fire! Each rifle rings!
Hear that victorious cry!
Ah! See him fall and die!

In 1919, tiger hunting was still a popular form of big game hunting in south Asia. Hunts were carried out on foot, with horses and on the back of elephants, as referenced in the second verse of the tiger hunt rhyme. Tigers were also a common occurrence, with an estimated 40,000 or so individuals existing in India alone. The general consensus was that the hunting of and killing of these majestic animals was still an acceptable and prestigious activity, and that this resource was seemingly limitless. By the 1970s however, numbers had plummeted to just under 2000 individuals. This dramatic decline kick-started  a conservation plan which began with a well-overdue national ban on tiger hunting.

'The Story of the Tiger Hunt', as well as illustrating the attitudes of the time, leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions. The piece appears to contain recordings of a roaring tiger and trumpeting elephant, yet where did these recordings come from? They almost certainly were not recorded in the wilds of India so captive animals must have been used. But who recorded these animals and where? Or are these merely the work of talented foley artists working at the Emerson Phonograph Company? For now, these answers elude us. 

The works of Shakespeare contain many references to the sounds of the natural world, whether that be the ominous notes of a Raven in Henry VI or the "tu-whit, to-who" of a Tawny Owl in Love's Labour's Lost. 

One bird that appears in several of Shakespeare's plays and poems is the Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos). A source of inspiration for writers and poets across the ages, this small, plain-looking bird is best known for its exquisite voice that can often be heard just as other birds are starting to fall silent for the night. The Nightingale was once a common summer visitor to the British countryside, so it's likely that its beautiful song would have been a familiar sound to Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the fairy queen Titania commands her subjects to sing her to sleep before commencing their nocturnal duties. The fairies call on the Philomel, a colloquial name for the Nightingale, to use his sweet tunes to send their queen to sleep:

Philomel, with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm,
Nor spell nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So good night, with lullaby.

A Midsummer Night's Dream ( 2:2 663-669)

Once asleep, the fairy king Oberon squeezes the juice of a magical flower onto Titania's closed eyelids that will make her fall in love with the first living thing she sees upon waking, which just so happens to be the donkey-headed Bottom. 

Charles Mottram, 1807–1876, Oberon and Titania - "Midsummer Night's Dream", Act II, Scene II, Engraving, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund

In the Taming of the Shrew, the fortune-seeking Petruchio is determined to win over the strong-willed Kate by countering her insults with compliments:

I’ll attend her here
And woo her with some spirit when she comes.
Say that she rail; why then I’ll tell her plain
She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.

Taming of the Shrew (2:1 1013-1016)

Taming of the Shrew, Katherine and Petruchio, graphic, J.D.L. Courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library. 

The Nightingale makes another appearance in Shakespeare's romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet. The morning after their secret marriage, Juliet tries to persuade Romeo not to leave by saying that the birdsong they heard came from a Nightingale and not a lark announcing the break of day:

Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Romeo and Juliet (3:5 2098-2102) 

Poster advertising Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet. Signed J.L. Lith. Library of Congress.

Just as the writers of the past endeavored to celebrate the magnificent song of this little bird through the written word, so the sound recordists of today try to do the same with sound.  Here is just one of our many recordings of a singing Nightingale, recorded in an English forest in the early hours of an April morning in 2008 by Phil Riddett. A sweet lullaby indeed. 

Nightingale song recorded in Kent 2008 by Phil Riddett

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The British Library's current exhibition Shakespeare in Ten Acts is a landmark exhibition on the performances that made an icon, charting Shakespeare’s constant reinvention across the centuries and is open until Tuesday 6th September 2016.

Last year, the British Library, the National Trust and the National Trust for Scotland ran a three month sound mapping project that encouraged members of the public to go out and record their favourite sounds from around the British coastline. 'Sounds of our Shores' received over 600 recordings that covered everything from waves and wildlife to amusements and industry, and helped tell the sonic story of the British coastline during the summer of 2015. At the end of the project, musician and sound artist Martyn Ware was invited to create a composition based on recordings submitted by the public. Here, Martyn speaks about his own relationship with the coast as well as the various themes represented in his specially composed piece, 'Sea Inside Us All'.

When Mike Collins from The National Trust asked me to create a long-form piece based on over 600 recordings from the public of the British coast, my first reaction was one of joy…a chance to create a virtually ‘symphonic’ work in the style of a ‘slow radio’ impressionistic experiential sound/dreamscape.

I love the coast of the UK – having had the good fortune to travel all over the world, I can honestly say there are very few countries that can compete with the beauty and diversity of our coastline.

Last year I was commissioned (as part of an online art project entitled One And All) to create a 3D soundscape based on sounds that I collected via a specially built beach hut (which was transported to Seaham in Co. Durham, Orford Ness in Suffolk, and Porthgain in Pembrokeshire), designed to record peoples reminiscences of the sea whilst looking out through a small square porthole to the horizon. The responses we got were incredibly varied, but one common theme emerged – that the coast is a place of contemplation and largely carefree joy – and that people are much more aware of their sonic environment in proximity to the sea.

I also created a 3D soundscape which was installed at Somerset House last year with the hypnotic visual accompaniment of Ben Wigley’s film. We even brought the bruised and battered beach hut to the Thames riverside – it has now become a kind of ‘Tardis’ and it has assumed a character of it’s own (particularly as we encouraged people who visited to graffiti the inside with drawings or comments about the sea!).

For 'Sea Inside Us All', I’ve incorporated some contemplative and gorgeous longer stretches of soundscape with no human presence – from rainscapes to foghorns, from clifftops and birds to shingle being thrown around by giant waves, fisherman’s equipment clunking around in the wind, rockpools gurgling, and simple wavescapes at night.

But the solitude and peace of the coast is counterbalanced by the joy and chaos of busy seaside towns. This is a particular passion of mine, as our only annual holiday every year when I was a child was one day on a working men’s club charabanc trip, usually to Cleethorpes, Skegness or Scarborough. That one day symbolised total freedom and joy – no worries re money – just for one day. The donkeys, the sandcastles, the football, but most of all the penny arcades and the rides, the ghost train in particular… and our one and only trip to Blackpool was like Las Vegas compared to our normal days out – the Grand National ride, and the massive pleasure park…

Another theme that emerged from the recordings was all the recreational events that happen at the seaside – coastal steam railways, morris dancing, the thrill of classic aircraft at seaside airshows, boat trips for bird watching, fishermens songs on a fishing trip, market traders selling the fish, fiddle playing on a drinking session, or simply a cup of tea and a cake out of the rain!

But the real heart and soul of the coast is embodied within the many enthusiasts whose passions are multifarious – descriptions of different seaweeds, a lifeguard describing her work in great detail, the ‘twitchers’ describing the ever-changing natural environment (rather like sentinels on behalf of us all), the clear and present love that many, many people have for the coast is completely evident in these recordings.

My son Gabriel Ware had recorded some orchestral pieces about the sea previously for a project in Liverpool entitled 'The Crossing' (a 30 minute piece about a trip to New York and back on an imaginary Cunard liner – but over 175 years also!) – so I asked him to write some music for 'Sea Inside Us All'. His compositions perfectly embody the wistful calm and serenity of the coast.

In today’s ever-increasingly time-poor world, it is also evident that trips to the coast are an opportunity for families to reconnect in a less-sensorially cluttered environment.

All these elements combine to create a beautiful and emotionally engaging piece of work, which will transport you to another world by the sea – a world of fond reminiscence and happy times, of enthusiasts, of natural sonic majesty and beauty and of simple human pleasures, but most of all children and families at peace with the world, with all their senses fully engaged. That is why we all feel so much more alive at the coast…

So put your headphones on, relax and drift way… or try listening whilst in a busy city or commuting – it works!

Martyn Ware 14^th March 2016 

To whet your appetite, here is a five minute excerpt from 'Sea Inside Us All'

Sea Inside Us All excerpt_Martyn Ware
 

The full length version is available on audioBoom here.

For the fourth year running, the British Library has joined forces with GameCity to give budding videogame design students the opportunity to create interactive digital media inspired by our collections. The theme for this year's competition is Shakespeare, which coincides with the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death in 1616. Open to all UK-based Higher Education students, Shakespeare Off the Map presents an amazing opportunity to get creative with British Library content. Illustrations, engravings, maps and a varied selection of sounds have been pulled together by curators based around the following topics:

Castles - scenes of ghosts and murder in Shakespeare

Castles appear in several of Shakespeare's best known tragedies, from the battlements of Elsinore in Hamlet to the Scottish strongholds of Macbeth.

Hamlet, Horatio and the Ghost by Henry Fuseli.
From: A Collection of Prints, from pictures painted for the purpose of illustrating the Dramatic Works of Shakspeare [sic], by the Artists of Great Britain. Published: London 1803. Shelfmark: Tab.599.c

Sounds in this topic have been selected to help students create atmospheric soundtracks to bring their games to life. Focusing on the soundscapes surrounding these scenes of murder and vengeance, rather than the castles themselves, these recordings include brooding weather and eerie wildlife sounds that can be used to create the desired ambiance. A 1909 recording of Macbeth's famous dagger speech has also been made available.

Forests, woodlands and A Midsummer Night's Dream

The forests and woodlands of Shakespeare range from the sinister to the fantastical. A Midsummer Night's Dream is set within a magical woodland full of fairy enchantment while Macbeth sees Birnham Wood come alive as Malcolm's soldiers disguise themselves with felled branches as they approach Macbeth's castle.

Scenes from Shakespeare for the Young. Illustrated by H. Sidney … Preface by E. L. Blanchard. 1885. 1871.e.4

Sounds selected for this topic range from cawing crows in a blustery winter woodland to a cacophony of beautiful birdsong on a summer day.

The Tempest

The Tempest was one of the last of Shakespeare's plays. Written between 1611-12, the play begins on board a ship caught in the midst of a terrible storm.  Battered by the elements, the ship is destroyed and those on board washed ashore a mystical island inhabited by the magician Prospero, his daughter Miranda, the salve Caliban and the spirit Ariel. 

The play was in part inspired by an actual shipwreck that happened off the coast of Bermuda in 1609. At the time the Burmuda islands were the most feared places on Earth for seafarers. Stories abounded about the islands being inhabited by devils and these supernatural rumours provided ample inspiration for Shakespeare.

 Map of Bermuda as published in Gerhard Mercator and Jodocus Hondius’ world atlas of 1633. Maps K.Top 123

Sounds chosen for The Tempest focus on two aspects of the story - the sea with its turbulent nature and the magical interior of the island. Rainforest atmospheres were selected for those students wishing to set their games inland while bad weather and stormy seas were picked out for those wanting to create an ocean setting.

Full details for students wishing to take part in the competition can find information on how to get started on the dedicated Shakespeare Off the Map pages on the GameCity website. It will be fascinating to see how the student teams incorporate these sounds into their games and we look forward to sharing the results with you later in the year.

The British Library's upcoming exhibition Shakespeare in Ten Acts opens 15th April 2016

In early 2015 I was fortunate enough to catch Bex Lyons giving a presentation on The Academic Book of the Future. This is a research project sponsored by the British Library and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and delivered by a research team led by Dr Samantha Rayner at UCL. The project seeks to explore the future of academic books in the context of open access publishing and digital change.

Aside from the fascinating debates about what constitutes ‘academic’, what constitutes a ‘book’, and what an ‘academic book’ might be in the current research landscape – I was struck by the potential applications of the project to the collection I am vested in at The British Library: sound.

The British Library sound archive is an extraordinary collection of over 6.5 million recordings dating back to the birth of recorded sound in the early 19^th century. If you were to listen to our entire collection back to back, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no holidays or breaks, it would take you over 140 years – plus the collection is growing daily! It is a unique research resource, comparable only to the Library of Congress sound collections in the USA. Find out more about our collection here 

Sound recordings are the closest thing to time travel that we have as a research tool. Take for instance this audio clip of JRR Tolkien visiting a tobacco shop. We are instantly transported to 1929 when the recording was made, and it is easy to feel that you are being addressed directly. The time that has passed between then and now seems to vanish. (image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/12255828365)

The Save Our Sounds project

Many of the British Library’s recordings are under threat of disappearing as technologies change and some formats begin to naturally decay, and in response to this challenge the Library has launched a major campaign to digitise our historic sound collections.

As well as enabling us to future-proof our collections, the Save Our Sounds campaign is a unique opportunity for us to take stock of our role as audio heritage archivists, cataloguers, librarians, and collectors. Part of this includes considering access and the ways in which our collections are used by researchers. It is here, at the crossroads of research and engagement, that linking up with The Academic Book of the Future project becomes very exciting.

At the moment, if an ‘academic text’ includes audio or visual resources these tend to be included as DVDs, CDs, and perhaps even CD-ROMs (yes, they are still floating around out there!). As the technological landscape of the world changes, the ability to access and play CDs, DVDs and most definitely CD-ROMs will become increasingly limited. From the initial survey work that has been done for the Save Our Sounds project, the main preservation concern is not that the recordings themselves are at risk of disappearing, but the obsolescence of the playback equipment.

So, how will audio-visual resources be included in academic books of the future?

In current and emerging contexts in which content is increasingly digitised and media-rich, how will the ability to incorporate audio-visual research directly into research outputs change the way in which these outputs are created, accessed, and referenced?

We hope that working with The Academic Book of the Future project to address some of these questions will offer important insights into how researchers are using sound and moving image resources, and highlight common issues and concerns across disciplines.

If you are or have used sound and/or audio-visual materials for research do please complete our short survey. The closing date is Friday 1^st April.

A symposium has been arranged to discuss the findings of the survey & hear presentations by publishing houses, app developers, and researchers. The symposium will address and encourage discussing ways of working together to fully explore the potential of audio-visual components in the academic book of the future. Save the date – 23^rd May 2016 at The British Library, London.

Find out more about Save our Sounds at www.bl.uk/save-our-sounds, follow @SoundHeritage for live updates from our digitisation studio, @SoundArchive for tweets from the sound team, and use #SaveOurSounds to join the conversation on Twitter.

Steven Dryden - Sound & Vision Reference Specialist 

As part of our Europeana Sounds project we will be holding an editathon at the British Library between 10am and 4pm on Saturday the 7^th November, and would love you to join us.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/12403504@N02/11002094234/

Europeana Sounds is a two year European funded project, coordinated by the British Library. As part of the project we are aggregating over half a million audio recordings into Europeana and have been working on licensing and enrichment and participation which includes smaller crowdsourcing projects.

As part of our editathon we’ll be working with our British Wildlife sounds collection to expand Wikipedia and enrich existing pages. Whether you’re a fan of editing Wikipedia, have a passion for sounds or would like to work with our collection come along and spend the day with the Europeana Sounds team. There will be Wikimedians available throughout the day for hands on training so if you’ve never edited before, now would be an ideal time to come and learn how it’s done. If you have previous experience of editing, bring your headphones and listen to some of our wonderful collection whilst improving Wikipedia.

The full event details are available on our project website, and the sign up page can be found here. We just need you to your laptop, headphones and enthusiasm and we’ll provide the rest (including lunch!).

Workshop Programme:

10.00-10.30 Arrival and welcome coffee. Log on and computer checks.

10.30-10.45 Introduction to the British Library and an introduction to Europeana Sounds.

10.45-11.00 Introductions to British Library Sounds and Wildlife collection from curator Cheryl Tipp

11.00-11.15 Introduction to Wikimedia

11.15-12.45 Hands on session editing Wikipedia and training available throughout.

12.45-13.00 Recap and sharing

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.45 Edits continue

15.45-16.00 Recap of the day and work done

16.00 End!

If you have any further questions or would like to know more please contact Laura Miles: [email protected]