Archival Sound Recordings Service

We now have access to a new resource – the British Library’s Archival Sound Recordings website which provides UK Higher and Further Education staff and students free access to over 12,000 recordings (3,900 hours). 

To access the resource go to the My learning / Learning support page in the portal. In the Search the Library portlet select the Online databases and academic journals link. On the next page scroll down and click on Archival Sound Recordings in the list to enter the resource. 

Collections include:

  • 400 popular music tracks (mostly British bands from the 1930s to 1990s)
  • African Writers’ Club (250 hours on art, literature, music and politics)
  • Art and design interviews (e.g. Denys Lasdun, Eduardo Paolozzi, Paula Rego)
  • Beethoven String Quartets (750 recordings from the last 100 years
  • David Rycroft Africa recordings (music and poetry, mainly from Southern Africa)
  • Klaus Wachsmann Uganda recordings (1,500 recordings from 26 culture groups)
  • Oral history of jazz in Britain (with musicians, promoters and label-owners)
  • Records and record players (developments in recording technology)
  • Sony Radio Awards – drama (every short-listed play 1986-1997)
  • Soundscapes (evocative environmental sounds from Great Britain and Canada)
  • St Mary-le-Bow public debates (e.g. John Betjeman, Jonathan Miller, Diana Rigg)

Digital Lives – New Research Project

New research project to explore the nation’s digital memories


* ‘Digital Lives’ sets to understand how we use computers in our daily lives to capture personal moments and memories


* Led by the British Library with University College London and Bristol University


* All creators and users of digital information invited to fill in an online survey
Digital Lives is a pathfinding research project that is setting out to understand how individuals retain and manage their personal collections of computerised information. From diaries, letters, jottings and photo albums to blogging, emailing, tweeting and flickr-ing, the digital revolution has affected enormously the ways in which we record our personal lives.
These largely born- digital collections will become invaluable in years to come for researchers – from biographers and historians to literary critics and scientists. Currently nobody knows for
sure what is happening to this material and whether it can be made available in the future. Digital Lives aims to begin to answer these questions.


There are two ways in which people can participate and help the ‘Digital Lives’ project:
* By completing an online survey at http://www.bl.uk/digitallivessurvey.html which looks
at the way people currently use their computers to capture their digital lives
* By sending in details of technologies and online services relevant for capturing, retaining and sharing digital information to digital.lives@bl.uk
More information can be found at the Digital Lives website: http://www.bl.uk/digital-lives/

Vitae Researchers’ Portal launched

Vitae, a new organisation to champion the professional and career development of researchers, was launched on 25th June 2008 by Ian Pearson MP alongside the new Concordat to support the career development of researchers. Vitae builds on previous work by the UK GRAD Programme and UKHERD to build capacity in the HE sector to support researchers and will work with higher education institutions, researchers and employers to make real and positive change. Find out more at: http://www.vitae.ac.uk/

Welcome

Library Services operates the library and student computing facilities at each of the three campuses, Avery Hill, Greenwich and Medway. 

The services offered at each site are very similar, although the Drill Hall library at Medway serves three universities occupying a single campus, and because of this is inevitably a little different from the other two. 

The labs and libraries are either in one building or integrated together in one unit, but at Greenwich and Avery Hill there are additional computer labs in other locations around the campus, also operated by Library Services staff.