The Listening Project is a partnership between BBC Radio and the British Library that invites people to share an intimate conversation, to be recorded and broadcast by the BBC and, if suitable, curated and archived by the British Library. These conversations will form a unique picture of our lives today, preserved for future generations.
Throughout the Project, our experts will be discussing these conversations and highlighting related recordings in the archive, on their Sounds blog.
Sounds at the British Library
Our Sounds website showcases over 50,000 recordings from our world-class collection of 3.5 million items.
From 1950s interviews with East Anglian farmworkers to 1970s recordings of children talking about their playground games to British scientists telling the stories behind their greatest discoveries, the archive offers us fascinating insights into history - through the words of those who were there.
Oral history and research
If the Listening Project has inspired you to learn more about oral history as a powerful means of recording the unique memories and life experiences of people whose stories might otherwise have been lost, get more information from our
Oral History web pages. For many people oral history offers a personal insight into history and society, and preserves the accents and language of the past. To find out more about oral history local to you, go to the
Oral History Society website .
Oral history in the classroom
Our Learning website suggests many opportunities for using audio material in schools.
For example,
Voices of the Holocaust consists of oral history testimonies gathered from survivors in Britain, together with associated information and student activities.
The BBC and the British Library: in partnership
The Library works closely with the BBC in a number of ways, including on several major projects to preserve the voices and memories of the UK. The Millennium Memory Bank, one of the largest oral history collections in Europe, recorded people aged from five to 107 years old, and from communities across the UK, talking about their everyday lives and creating a record of the UK on the eve of the new millennium.
