Prompted by the recognition that while there exists a vast wealth of visual and written documentary material on life’s experiences, there exists relatively little whose audio characteristics have been captured, the BBC’s ‘Save Our Sounds’ project is attempting to assist in the preservation of what it calls ‘endangered sounds’.

While ‘sound maps’ are nothing new (a simple Google search demonstrates this), and the extent to which the sounds featured so far could be described as ‘endangered’ is questionable, I’m impressed that the BBC are doing something that will expose more people to the concept of field recording and that they are doing so with such aplomb.

The project seems to span a number of sites, however the the following page serves as the primary location for curious listeners. – http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specialreports/saveoursounds/index.shtml

Unfortunately however I tried to contribute two recordings to the map this evening, and was met by a webpage error message. I hope this is only temporary, and in the meantime I’ve popped an e-mail to their support hoping that they’ll be able to assist.