British Library Sound Archive was opened in 1905 in King’s Cross, their aim was to archive and store a wide range of archival sound recordings from varied different sources. I found the ICA talks that they stored to be very interesting as there was a couple of names of people I knew on there and I was intrigued and excited to listen to their interviews. I found a lot of natural sounds that could be sampled within my work if I couldn’t record therewith foley. I think most of the library seemed to be very western and there was not a lot of archived sounds from all around the world (apart from a small section of world music).
Some problems the British Library have faced was that the library was at risk of being lost as it was not digital. Save Our Sounds – In 2015 ‘Save our sounds’ was launched which is a programme addressed to make the British Library upload the sound library onto digital hardware as it was as risk of being lost. Unlocking our sound heritage is also a UK-wide project which’s aim was to preserve and digitalise the British library’s sound library.
