Sound is essential when experiencing, exploring and understanding historical and contemporary societies. But sounds is seldom caught or preserved. The aim of the project Work with Sounds is to reconstruct and collect ‘threatened’ sounds of historical work and work places in Europe. The sounds will be publically available on the internet through a database and the use will be free. This project and source of historical sounds will offer 1) possibilities for educational institutions to promote intercultural dialogue and a deeper understanding of the European history, 2) possibilities for creative innovations and usage among European citizens, media producers, artists and entrepreneurs.The project has two objectives:1) Preservation by cooperation. The sound recording will be done in collaboration with people who knows how to recreate the environments and how to use the tools, technique and machines, i.e. people engaged in working life-, industrial-, technical- or social history museums. The sound database will offer historical facts and stories related to the sounds, which makes it richer in information than other sources of sound on the internet.2) Accessibility to educate and stimulate creative usage. By co-operating with schools and media producers the project will stimulate the usage of the sounds for school work and education in new and innovative ways. The free access on the internet will ensure the spreading of the sounds and the history related to them. It will also stimulate the public use for exhibits, media productions, storytelling, animations, artistic work, dance, performances, music sampling etc, as well as new creative innovations and products.The Museum of Work in Sweden coordinates the project and cooperates with five museums across Europe: Finnish Labour Museum Werstas, Technical museum of Slovenia, La fonderie Brussels museum of work and industries in Belgium, the LWL-Industriemuseum in Germany and Museum of Municipal Engineering in Poland.