It is the aim of the British Institute of Recorded Sound to preserve copies of all published, and some unpublished, records of music, speech, animal and other varieties of sound in a collection on lines similar to that of printed matter in the British Museum Library. So far as music is concerned, the present aim is to obtain copies of records as they are published and to rescue as many of those made since recording first began, irrespective of their current value. It is of course impossible to predict the degree of value of any particular record—as to its music, performance, recording, or documentary interest—and it is quite probable that many will share the fate of Dussek's piano sonatas in relation to those of his contemporaries Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. It is fairly predictable however that records of Bartók, for instance, playing his own piano pieces will be of immense value for a very long time, in spite of the inferiority of the actual recording. But the Institute has no intention of forcing any kind of discrimination on the future—restriction is unavoidable, as with the Tate Gallery, only through an insufficiency of funds. Ideally its appetite must be gargantuan; classical and jive, romantic ballet and rock ‘n’ roll, Antonio's castanets and African drums, the voices of Flagstad, Norman Wisdom and Florence Foster Jenkins are all desired for its archives. Speech and music of the present day should be represented fully and impartially, and the future student be permitted to draw his own conclusions.