Recording of the week: "There was always the smell" – inter-generational memories of the steel industry

This week’s selection comes from Charlie Morgan, Oral History Archive & Administrative Assistant. The last time I wrote a recording of the week post it was about the artist Michael Rothenstein’s memories of growing up in the Cotswolds (C466/02). For him, these were all mediated through sights and sounds. This…

Women, Engineering and British Politics

To mark International Women in Engineering Day 2018 Dr Sally Horrocks explores the British Library oral history collections to see what they tell us about women whose careers involved both engineering and parliamentary politics.

Tracking down Tamás

By Jonathan Summers, Curator of Classical Music Tamás Vásáry at the Hotel Gellert restaurant (photo by Jonathan Summers) Save our Sounds is the British Library’s programme to preserve the nation’s sound heritage. Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, many collections will be digitised and made available to the public online…

“And we saw the thing had done a computation” – The modern computer turns 70

It’s been 70 years since the first successful run of the Manchester Baby, arguably the worlds first modern computer.

Recording of the week: Dennis Brutus

This week’s selection comes from Stephen Cleary, Lead Curator of Literary & Creative Recordings. In this archive recording from the African Writers Club collection, South African poet and anti-apartheid activist Dennis Brutus reads the introductory poem from his debut volume Sirens Knuckles Boots. At the time of the book’s publication…