In one of the Wikis' articles on English Folk Music (Wiki, Folkopedia, Folkipeadia, whatever) there's a delightful story (maybe apocryphal) of Ewan MacColl making frequent research visits to the BBC or maybe the National Sound Archives. There he discovered wonderful field recordings and made copies of them. Then he went home and made copies for anyone who was interested in them. I love that story - these recordings need to be out in the public domain instead of sitting mouldering away in some dusty archives.

The USA has shown the way with the immense Alan Lomax archives(*) going online. Is it too much to hope that the BBC and Natioanal Sound archives at the British Library might just put their archives online too?

(*) Incidentally the archives have some fascinating interviews between Lomax and MacColl.