City Sound Archive
Human History CollectionThe City Sound Archive comprises oral history interviews from Birmingham people of the 20th and 21st centuries.
It includes:
- Birmingham Black Oral History Project
- Collecting Birmingham
- Vibes - A History of Music
- Change in the Inner City: Childhood
You can listen to some of archive on our City Sound Archive website.
Please be aware that objects from our collections are not always on public display.
If you are hoping to view a specific object or collection, please check the ‘Highlights' or 'What to See’ pages on our venue websites for current display information for that venue. Alternatively, feel free to contact us before your visit.
Projects
We have also been using the City Sound Archive in some projects, find out more below:
Birmingham Now
Birmingham Now is an interactive digital map website which brings together the sounds clips from the past and present from across Birmingham. It includes:
Extracts from historic interviews from Birmingham Museums’ City Sound Archive.
New recordings sent in by members of the public as well as work by creative groups in Birmingham.
Food and Drink
The focus of this project is reinterpreting our oral history collections through a public health lens, using the 1984 collection of oral histories, titled ‘Food and Drink’. This collection documents the changes in food consumption over time, in the city of Birmingham.
Voices of the City
This project aims to preserve and explore the rich collection of community oral histories from the West Midlands. It focuses on transcribing interviews from four specific collections over the next three years, with the support of our dedicated team of volunteers.
- Vibes - A History of Urban Music
- Change in the Inner City: Childhood
- Take Heart: People, History and Change in Birmingham’s Heartlands
- Nazi Genocide: The Spoken Recollections of West Midlands Survivors 1923-1966
