From a series of events to accompany the Taking Liberties exhibition. Panel debate on where the ceiling is on our freedoms and rights when we must decrease emissions of greenhouse gases. With Dr Gabrielle Walker; Simon Retallack (Institute for Public Policy Research); Andy Atkins (Friends of the Earth); David North (Tesco); and Ken Livingstone (former London mayor).

Since December 2003, the British Library Sound Archive has been a partner in

the Surface Scanning of Archived Sound Recordings research project at the University of

Southampton. Professor John McBride, the project's manager and Nigel Bewley,

head sound engineer in the Sound Archive, discuss the project. This podcast contains audio

transferred by the project from the British Library's earliest object containing recorded sound,

a Thomas Alva Edison tinfoil recording of c. 1877, which is unplayable by conventional means.

Although the audio is of poor quality, it's extraordinary that the 130-year-old recording survives

and is recoverable at all.

Dr Saad Eskander, head of the Iraq National Library and Archive, became known for his remarkable online diary in 2006-07 on the extraordinary challenges of running a library in Baghdad during a time of conflict. At this ceremony he receives an Honorary Fellowship, and talks about his remarkable experiences

From a series of events to accompany the Taking Liberties exhibition. In this fascinating lecture, Professor Nicholas Vincent – author and Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia, and one of the world's leading experts on Magna Carta – talks about the great icon of liberty: its background, its significance, and its various physical incarnations

Shami Chakrabarti talks to Joan Bakewell in this interview recorded at the British Library on 31 October 2008, part of the Taking Liberties exhibition events series. Chakrabarti talks in detail about how quick-fix legislation, which has created 3000 new offences since 1997, is eroding our freedoms and rights

Curator Kristian Jensen discusses the 1957 Wolfenden Report, which caused controversy upon its appearance for recommending that homosexual acts between consenting adults in private be legalised, but which led not only to a change in law but also public attitudes

Curator Matthew Shaw discusses Thomas Paine's radical 1791 text The Rights of Man: its political background in the English and French Revolutions, the response to Burke, its remarkable reception at the time, and its pioneering vision of social welfare and justice that was many decades ahead of its time

Richard Fairman of the British Library Sound Archive discusses

The Spoken Word – British Writers and The Spoken Word – American Writers: CD sets containing rare and

previously unpublished recordings of famous and influential authors. Includes discussion and audio clips of

Arthur Miller, Arthur Conan Doyle and Virginia Woolf. Interviewed by Sarah Espiner.

Curator Matthew Shaw talks about some of the remarkable documents on show in the

Library's forthcoming exhibition on Britain's struggle for freedoms and rights (31 Oct 2008 - 1 Mar 2009): from Magna Carta,

through the Rights of Man and suffragette diaries, to today's debates about human rights, ID cards, and detention without trial.

The great playwright Harold Pinter discusses his work in forthright terms with actor Harry Burton. With anecdotes about working with Ayckbourn, Gielgud and Richardson; his views on Iraq; a poetry reading; and his assertion that to tackle injustice, our job is 'to look for the truth and tell it'.