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.