Sounds for the Future

We are delighted to announce that the East Midlands Oral History Archive (EMOHA) and the University's Special Collections have come to the end of their project, 'Sounds for the Future'. The project has been funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and has run from May 2022 to October 2023, with an extension to April 2024. The project has secured the future of the collections of the EMOHA and we would like to thank the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the players of the National Lottery for their support. We would also like thank the Veronica and Ian Nicholas bequest. 

In the past, many recordings were archived to CD-R, which are now at risk of deterioration, as were several collections of tapes that have never been digitised. There was also a large backlog of cataloguing, which means that many recordings were not available to be listened to.

Sounds for the Future has preserved all of EMOHA's collections in a new digital preservation system and brought the cataloguing up to date. The project has also created lots of opportunities for volunteers to learn about oral history, audio preservation, and how to use oral histories to explore local history and heritage. A full list of web exhibitions created by the project can be found on our round up of 2023 blog.

Our collections mostly cover the history of Leicestershire and Rutland although we also have collections from Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, and Nottinghamshire too. We were particularly pleased to be able to preserve at-risk collections from Northampton Central Library. Search for Northamptonshire on our catalogue to see these.

From January 2024 to April 2024 we gave a series of free talks about EMOHA, oral history and our audio preservation work. You can see details of where these were on our blog about our 2024 road trip.

Statistics from the project

Digitisation

• Reel to reel tapes – 477
• Cassettes – 859
• CD-Rs – 519
• DAT (Digital Audio Tape) - 59

Cataloguing

• 2,700 newly catalogued items
• 1,654 items moved from the old EMOHA catalogue into the Archives and Special Collections catalogue.  

Access

• 130 collections added to both the catalogue and Arkivum preservation system.
• 263 new recordings rights cleared and added to the CONTENTdm online platform.

Outreach

• More than 30 talks/events that engaged with over 300 people
• A series of blogs, podcasts and web exhibitions.

Volunteers

• We worked with 41 volunteers and three work placements, who did 360 sessions with us, which amounted to 789.5 hours.

Education

• A new YouTube channel, EMOHA Learning
• New learning pages created on the EMOHA website

If you would like to find out more about the project contact Colin Hyde on emoha@le.ac.uk or 0116 2525065.