John Peel‘s record collection has been extensively archived and is now available to browse and listen to online.

The John Peel Centre For Creative Arts has exhaustively and meticulously preserved legendary BBC DJ John Peel’s vinyl record collection, housing it on website The Space.

The interactivity and browsing experience is beautifully done, with the website somehow distilling the tangible nature of vinyl and Peel’s charming hand typed track listings and note cards; giving the user the feeling that they are truly browsing a personalised encyclopaedia of musical history.

Aside from the collection itself, which contains links to Spotify and other online sources hosting the tracks themselves, you can browse Peel Sessions, photos, video clips and much more. It’s undoubtedly the definitive online resource to the man and his legacy.

I could spend hours browsing the vinyl sections alone. My first foray was into Post NWA Gangsta Rap with Above The Law’s Livin Like Hustlers.

Indicative of Peel’s eclectic taste (only a few sleeves along was Abba’s Voulez-Vous), Livin Like Hustlers is a slice of sunny Californian gangster rap that brings to mind low riders and high tops. Perhaps more importantly, I’d never heard it before.

I think maybe that’s the beauty of this resource as it will introduce people to music that they might never have encountered were it not for Peel and his passion for new talent and that’s something he would no doubt have been proud of.

Sheila Ravenscroft (John’s wife) will select a different artist each week to feature in a video interview that will sit alongside the collection.

You can visit John Peel’s record collection and other archives here.