About Listening Desk
A new sound installation, Listening Desk, has recently been unveiled in the Wellbeing Collection on the ground floor of the Library.
The desk is one of ten installed by the artist Emily Peasgood, around the UK and she describes it as “a bonkers thing, that looks like a regular desk grew a huge horn. It’s a desk but not for reading or writing, it’s for listening!”
Users can sit at the desk and choose from a selection of wellbeing-themed sounds, digitised as part of the Unlocking our Sounds Heritage (UOSH) project. This was a national project to preserve and make accessible our nation’s sound recordings, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, managed by the British Library with the Keep as our local hub.
Sounds currently available include a dog walk, peacock music and bees, taken from local archival sound collections, with a plan to rotate these with other recordings on a regular basis.
The touchscreen display is easy to use and the innovative design ensures the sound doesn’t leak into the rest of the Library.
You can find out more about the UOSH project here Unlocking Our Sound Heritage - The British Library (bl.uk) and please do pop into the Wellbeing Collection whenever the Library is open to try it yourself.