Multimedia: Audio

A collection of resources geared toward helping users with audio and visual research needs.

Need Help?

Audio Resources on the Web »

This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list of audio resources, but should provide a good sampling of useful starting points.

The Audio resources linked below offer collections of historic sound recordings made throughout the twentieth century. Most of these recordings are offered as free downloads that may be used for personal and academic purposes.

Topics included within these repositories cover popular entertainment such as classic radio programs to pivotal points in American history such as presidential speeches and proceedings of the Supreme Court.

Be sure to review the copyright information on each of these websites before utilizing any of the content found there!

Audio Archive
Audio Archive is a division of Internet Archive, and features thousands of digitized audio files ranging from historic radio programs to advertisements and musical concerts. All files are free for download.
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
From the Department of Special Collections, Donald C. Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara. The Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project includes a collection of 8,000 cylinder recordings held by the Department of Special Collections. Users may search or browse the collection, discover the history of cylinder recording, and read more about this project.
Historical Voices
Historical Voices is part of the national Digital Library Initiative II, and is housed at Michigan State University. It is a multimedia resource, and features a number of important audio collections such as presidential speeches, excerpts from the Supreme Court, the Flint Sit-Down Strike, and a host of other audio artifacts from notable events in American history.
Library of American Broadcasting
The Library of American Broadcasting is hosted by the University of Maryland. The collection features a wide-ranging collection of audio files, oral histories, and other multimedia chronicling the history of broadcasting in America.
National Jukebox from The Library of Congress
Historical recordings from the Library of Congress. Available recordings draw primarily from Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives. Includes options for playlisting, a glossary of terms, technology, and Victrola Book of the Opera.
American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank
Provides access to audio clips of American speeches, sermons, lectures, and interviews.
History and Politics Out Loud
HPOL is a searchable multimedia database documenting and delivering authoritative audio relevant to American history and politics.
Internet Archive - Audio
This library contains over two hundred thousand free digital recordings ranging from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry readings, to original music uploaded by our users. Many of these audios and MP3s are available for free download.
The John R. Hickman Collection
The John R. Hickman Collection consists of more than 10,000 broadcast quality audio recordings of vintage radio news and entertainment programs, from the 1920s through the 1970s. Users may browse the collection by program title, subject, broadcast date, performers, and author names.
mobygratis
The artist Moby has created this resource for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short. There is a selection of over 200 tracks, some unreleased, some from his back catalogue and new releases, available to license for free via a simple online application system.
Vital Speeches of the Day (VSOTD)
VSOTD offers a contemporary resource for students of rhetoric that features speeches by current visionaries in politics, business, education, and other leadership fields. Podcasts are available for download and a blog is rigorously updated with site news and other issues of interest.
Free Music Archive
Library of high-quality, legal audio downloads directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America. Every MP3 on The Free Music Archive is pre-cleared for certain types of uses.
Old Time Radio (OTR)
Collection of old radio dramas, comedies, westerns, and science fiction. Over 12,000 programs, mostly ranging from the early 1930s through the 1950s, but some from as early as 1929 and as late as the early 1960s. All programs are copyright-free. You will need the free RealPlayer software to play the files.
Traditional Music and Spoken Word Catalog
This searchable database provides bibliographic information on approximately 34,000 ethnographic sound recordings. Most were recorded between 1933 and 1950.
Vincent Voice Library
The G. Robert Vincent Voice Library is a collection of over 40,000 hours of spoken word recordings, dating back to 1888. The collection includes the voices of over 100,000 persons from all walks of life.
Wikimedia Commons
A database of 10,519,061+ freely usable media files used by Wikipedia to which anyone can contribute.

Marquette University

Raynor Library

Raynor Library

Multimedia: Audio

Audio Resources on the Web »

Location

Key Resources

Libraries A to Z

Problem with this webpage?