‘Punk is not an easy thing to define,” says Andy Linehan, curator of popular music at the British Library. “As with any type of music, people will say, ‘That’s punk’, ‘No, that’s punk’. Some say punk died in a specific year, others say punk lives.”

For the exhibition he’s staging, to mark the 40th anniversary of the movement, Linehan has decided to limit his focus to the explosive period between 1976 and 78 when punk first gatecrashed the public consciousness. “We’re looking at the initial burst,” he says, “and the impact it had – punk’s legacy.”

It may seem incongruous that the 20th century’s most snarlingly anti-establishment musical phenomenon is being honoured by such an august institution, but the British Library has amassed a huge archive of audio, video, print material and other artefacts associated with punk. “We’ve always collected the counterculture as well as the culture,” says Linehan.

For this show it will also draw from external sources, including an archive at Liverpool John Moores University donated by rock journalist Jon Savage. Linehan is also excited about getting “a very rare, unreleased A&M copy of God Save the Queen from a huge Sex Pistols collector” who jumped at the chance to share his treasures with the public.

As well as featuring seven-inches, magazine articles, radio interviews and videos from the period, the exhibition will explore punk’s impact on fashion and design. It’s hard to visualise the early days of punk without thinking of sloganeering shirts and DIY promotional art. Accordingly, Linehan and his team have gathered original clothes from Sex, the shop in the King’s Road, Chelsea, run by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. With their images of exposed breasts and naked cowboys, they still have shock value today.

A selection of fanzines in all their rough, xeroxed glory, from well-known titles such as Sniffin’ Glue to more obscure zines from around the country, will also be on display.

Fanzines are one way of tracing just how quickly punk spread around the UK, says Linehan. “It started as a London thing but suddenly there were bands and zines everywhere – Bristol, Manchester, Belfast, Edinburgh.” He puts it down to “the DIY ethos where people were going out and starting their own labels”. Rough Trade, Cherry Red and Beggar’s Banquet all kicked off with punk releases around 1977-78.

“People see it as negative and nihilistic,” says Linehan, “but punk was also positive in many ways – it was, in effect, the birth of the independent label.”

The show has a special significance for its curator, who was a teenager in London when punk was rearing its head. “I’d like to say I was there at the Roxy club every night – I wasn’t – but it was a really exciting time,” says Linehan. “There were undercurrents of tension and danger but it did seem new and exciting, and immediate and in-your-face. And to a teenager, that’s all good.”

Does he think punk is still alive and kicking? “Most types of music have their moment of impact and then fade, but there are always people who carry them on. Bands like the Stranglers and UK Subs are still playing, and every year there are festivals where all the old punks come out. They really celebrate the music they feel is still going, and that’s absolutely fine by me. We had to draw the line somewhere for the exhibition – but it’s not a black-and-white line, it’s kind of grey and fuzzy.”

The potential for distraction while putting the show together has been immense, he says. “Going through old copies of the NME, you’re off on a reverie of nostalgia. I find myself thinking, ‘Wow, 30p to see the Adverts!’ or ‘I went to see that at the Greyhound on Fulham Park Road’. It’s bringing a lot of stuff back for me, and hopefully people coming to the exhibition will experience that as well, and also people who weren’t around at the time .”

Punk 1976-1978, part of Punk London (www.punk.london), is at the British Library in May

Buzzcocks

We just think this is a nice shot, a nice period piece, which shows the Buzzcocks and their fashion sense at the time. It’s a publicity shot from their record company, taken when punk was becoming more than just the Sex Pistols. The Buzzcocks were THE Manchester band in the early days of punk.

Two cowboys T-shirt

A Vivienne Westwood design that caused some controversy. A lot of people did a double-take when they first saw this. Your attention is drawn to the top half first, then you see the rest of it. They’ve been pirated and reprinted, but this one is an original. There are pictures of it being worn by Steve Jones, Sid Vicious and Siouxsie. It underlines the provocative side of punk and still makes people double-take today.

Anarchy in the UK cover sketch

This is a working draft of the famous Anarchy in the UK cover by Jamie Reid. Obviously something very different came out, but you can see a note saying to use newspaper lettering for the Sex Pistols logo. It’s quite nice to see that and think, he went with that lettering idea.

Breasts T-shirt

Another provocative Westwood T-shirt, you’ll see Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols wearing it on the Bill Grundy programme – the one where they swore live on teatime television, on 1 December, 1976, and caused outrage throughout the land.

Anarchy in the UK tour poster

This is a poster for the Anarchy tour in December 1976. A number of those dates got struck off as a result of the Bill Grundy episode, including the Village Bowl and Liverpool Stadium. Due to the cancelled gigs, a lot of the posters didn’t get put up and are quite rare.

“You’re gonna wake up one morning...” T-shirt

This is one of the T-shirts from Sex [the King’s Road shop owned by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood]. It carries a kind of manifesto: if you’re with us, you’ll like all the things on this side; if not, you’ll like the things on that side’. Apparently this was written by Bernard Rhodes, who went on to manage the Clash.

The Clash concert photo

This is the Clash playing at Eric’s, which was the venue in Liverpool at the time. It’s probably from the White Riot tour in May 1977, because Strummer was also wearing that “999” shirt at the Rainbow show on that tour. We don’t think this picture’s been seen before. You can get an idea from the closeness of the audience that it was a very small, intimate gig.

This is a fanzine that was edited by Jon Savage, who went on to write the definitive history of punk, England’s Dreaming. It was done over a couple of days in November 1976 and sold 1,500 copies. We’ll have a number of fanzines from around the country on display at the exhibition – including a complete run of Sniffin’ Glue. They’re a nice example of the way people were communicating with each other. Obviously there were homemade magazines before this, but with punk the fanzine came into its own.

Roxy flyer

The Roxy [in Covent Garden] was the place in London to see live punk performances in the 70s [it shut in April 1978]. This flyer from March 1977 is just a great list of early punk bands: the Jam, the Stranglers, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Chelsea and Eater, who had a 14-year-old drummer called Dee Generate. Iron Maiden are on the bill, but it looks like they’ve been crossed out. Slaughter and the Dogs were a Manchester punk band, the Cortinas were a Bristol punk band. This was all in one month.

Don Letts was the DJ at the Roxy and famously he played a lot of reggae, because very few punk bands had records out at this stage – this was one of the seeds of the punk-reggae crossover.