The Role of Sound Archives in Soundscape Research

Abstract

The beginning of the soundscape movement was marked by a series of sound recording projects that sought to document the acoustic environment through qualitative and quantitative analysis. The current collection of soundscape recordings in the British Library Sound Archive have been selected as representative examples of the development of the field of soundscape study. However the advent of recording begins much earlier and the range of recordings attributable to soundscape research is extremely varied and cross-disciplinary. This paper seeks to promote discussion on the role of the sound archive in the growing field of acoustic environmental research and how it can respond to the rapidly changing acoustic environment.