Unlocking our sound heritage

Unlocking Our Sound Heritage is a UK-wide project that will help preserve and provide access to as much as possible of the nation's rare and unique sound recordings before they become unreadable and are effectively lost. This will open up the nation's sounds to everyone.

The project is part of the Save our Sounds programme a partnership project led by the British Library, with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. There are ten regional hubs across the UK. From 2018-2021, the Midlands Hub was based at the University of Leicester and covered Birmingham, Derbyshire, Herefordshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire.

The work

Read our blog posts for a complete description of the collections the Midlands Hub preserved and the collection holders we worked with. 

In 2021, we worked with the University’s Museum Studies students to create ‘Listening in Lockdown’, a number of online projects that used sound to investigate how lockdown and sound have affected each other.

In partnership with Leicestershire County Council we created audio resources for carers to use with people who have dementia. Both Sounds Familiar and Simply Sounds are designed to stir memories and start conversations.