Be surprised

Musical instruments

(recording, 1 hour)

From Malaysian lamellophones to Yoruba drums, listen to a playlist from the British Library Sound Archive of musical instruments from around the world.

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Selection and mix by Michele Banal, World and Traditional Music cataloguer for the British Library project Unlocking Our Sound Heritage. The digitisation, cataloguing and full preservation of these recordings was made possible by the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Discover more here

Image courtesy Mario la Pergola on Unsplash

Decorative papers

(online image gallery)

Be inspired by the British Library's collection of decorative papers, from swirling marbled designs to geometric prints.

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Explore more themed online photo albums of the British Library's collections here

digitised image from page 461 of "Narrative of events during the invasion of Russia by Napoleon Buonaparte, and the retreat of the French Army. 1812. Edited by ... the Rev. H. Randolph"

Cuddywifters, Cack-handers and Coochies

(recording, 1 hour, 33 minutes)

Celebrate the diversity of regional English with this podcast. You'll learn a whole host of fascinating dialect and slang words, and discover just what a cuddywifter really is...

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Image courtesy Vince Fleming from Unsplash

17th-century printed ballads

(online resource)

Browse a wonderfully rich collection of almost 10,000 English ballads from the 17th century. See images of the ballads, read them in modern type and listen to recordings of them.

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The British Library is one of the biggest contributors of the English Boardside Ballad Archive (EBBA). Explore the Archive here.

A Merry Discourse between / Billy and his Mistris. (c.1680-1690) British Library, shelfmark: C.40.m.10.(148.)

The Sound of the Machine: My Life in Kraftwerk and Beyond

(video, 1 hour, 25 minutes)

Watch Karl Bartos as he talks about his life and career in Kraftwerk, a band widely recognised as being one of the most important in modern music. The video also includes a special performance by the Ebony Steel Band.

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Nose Dive

(video, 1 hour, 3 minutes)

What is smell and how does it work? Explore our most overlooked sense in this talk in which Harold McGee, an expert on the science of food and cooking, explores the history of smell across 4 billion years.