The Magnetic Tape Alert Project is an initiative of the Information for All Programme (IFAP) Working Group on Information Preservation. Photo: Bernhard Graf, Vienna Phonogrammarchiv Today’s knowledge of the linguistic and cultural diversity of humanity is widely based on magnetic tape recordings produced over the past 60 years. Magnetic audio…

Alan Turing as told through An Oral History of British Science by those who worked with him in Manchester.

This week’s selection comes from Michele Banal, Audio Project Cataloguer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage. Rinding gumbeng is a style of Central Javanese folk music that, although not widespread, is still common in the rural Gunungkidul area, about 50 km east of Yogyakarta, where it is performed at harvest rituals…

BBC journalist and author Kavita Puri reflects on the power of oral testimony. Hear more from Kavita at the British Library on Tuesday 16 July at 7pm, where she will discuss Partition Voices in conversation with Kirsty Wark.

This week’s selection comes from Camille Johnston, Oral History Assistant Archivist. As a boy the artist Norman Ackroyd (born 1938) developed a fascination with Victorian coins such as the Godless florin and Bun Head penny. He helped out in his family’s butchers shop in Leeds, and vividly describes in his…