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A new interactive history timeline developed by British Library allows students and teachers to explore collection items chronologically for the first time. www.bl.uk/timeline

Comparing the Peasants’ Revolt with the Punk Revolution or medieval astrology with the Apollo moon landings might appear unconnected at first, but the British Library’s new interactive timeline will allow students to get a sense of change, continuity and chronology when studying historical events.

Bringing together material from the Library’s vast collections and using cutting-edge technology, users will now be able to discover historical connections and create links in an exciting multimedia experience.

(via British Library)

The Guardian reports that the British Library revealed it has made its vast archive of world and traditional music available to everyone, free of charge, online.

That amounts to roughly 28,000 recordings and, although no one has yet sat down and formally timed it, about 2,000 hours of singing, speaking, yelling, chanting, blowing, banging, tinkling and many other verbs associated with what is a uniquely rich sound archive.

The recordings go back more than 100 years, with the earliest recordings being the wax cylinders on which British anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon recorded Aboriginal singing on his trip to the Torres Strait islands off Australia in 1898.

What an extraordinary record and resource for current and future generations. Amazingly, much of the British archive was obtained by the library in 2000-01 in a lottery-funded project!!