Unlocking Our Sound Heritage is an ambitious partnership project led by the British Library and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Sounds held on physical formats like cassette and open reel risk being lost as the carriers degrade over time and the equipment to play them is no longer produced. The project aims to preserve and transform access to the nation’s sound heritage.
Archives+ at Manchester Central Library is the hub partner for the North West region, which covers Cumbria, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The hub will digitise around 15,000 recordings on 5,000 cassette and open reels held all over the North West.
The collections we have digitised are:
- UAP001 Alec Greenhalgh oral history interviews (Manchester)
- UAP002 BBC Radio Manchester
- UAP003 North West Film Archive (NW)
- UAP004 Stan Mason folk music archive (Cheshire and Merseyside)
- UAP005 North West Recordings (NW)
- UAP006 Club Cheoil, Manchester
- UAP007 Greater Manchester Oral Histories
- UAP008 Manchester Studies Oral History Collection
- UAP009 Piccadilly Radio (Manchester)
- UAP010 Oldham Voices from the Past
- UAP011 Cotton, Curry and Commerce in Oldham
- UAP012 Women Mil Workers (Oldham)
- UAP013 Stockport Sound Archives
- UAP014 Bolton Oral History Project
- UAP015 Tameside Oral History Project: Here to Stay
- UAP016 Manchester Jewish Museum
- UAP017 Chester Archaeological Society
- UAP018 Wigan Oral History
- UAP019 Burnley Talks
- UAP020 Liverpool Jewish Community
- UAP021 Working Class Movement Library (Salford / NW)
- UAP022 Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester)
- UAP023 Spencer Leigh radio documentaries (Liverpool)
- UAP024 Working Practices & Malpractices in the Port of Liverpool
- UAP025 Talking Tales, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick
- UAP026 Cumbria Wildlife Trust High Fell Project
- UAP027 CELEBRATE: LGBT History in Cumbria
- UAP028 Cumbria Voices
- UAP029 Hidden Stories, Shared Lives (Cumbria)
- UAP030 Sellafield Stories
- UAP031 Eugene Halliday Archive (Cheshire)
- UAP032 Royal Albert Hospital Oral History Archive (Lancaster)
- UAP033 Elizabeth Roberts Working Class Oral History Archive (Cumbria / Lancashire)
- UAP034 BBC Radio Cumbria
- UAP035 Sound Recordings (NW)
- UAP036 BBC Radio Greater Manchester
- UAP037 Blue Funnel to China (Liverpool)
- UAP038 Merseyside Docklands History Project (Liverpool)
- UAP039 Lakeland Dialect Society
- UAP040 West Cumbria Oral History Network
- UAP041 Workington Borough Council recordings
- UAP042 Jodrell Bank Audio Archive
- UAP043 Liverpool University Docklands History Project
- UAP044 Kirkby Local History Society
- UAP045 St Helens Oral History
- UAP046 Macclesfield Oral History Project
- UAP047 Our Story – Memories of Gay Liverpool
- UAP048 Walter Monslow Collection (Cumbria)
- UAP049 Thomas Park Benson Collection (Cumbria)
- UAP050 Walter Greenhalgh of Broughton in Furness
