The Invisible Library

Good news from across the Atlantic–the BBC is making its material available in a special news archive.

For U.S. readers looking for a more complete view of world events than American publishers are willing to print, this should be VERY welcome news indeed. The BBC move also presents a chance to look at specialized archival collections, collections in this case special by the form of the materials.

Moving picture archives often require a special set of skills to conserve the materials for public use, if not also specialized knowledge to help researchers access it.

Furthermore, a common misconception among the public is that one library is just like the next, according to InfoWorld writer Janet Balas. I think archivists must also watch out for user expections which do not help users cut through the myriad information sources at their disposal. Just like each library is different, so is each archive. The more we can do to help users identify what type of research tools will help meet their specific needs, the better off we’ll all be.

If you’re interested in digital archives:

Internet Archive

Television News Archive
[This is a subscription service, unfortunately.]

For further reading:

“Digital Video, the Final Frontier” by Judith Thomas
Library Journal; Jan. 2004; 129, 1, pg. s8.

News release announcing BBC decision:

Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, has announced plans to give the public full access to all the corporation’s programme archives.

Mr Dyke said on Sunday that everyone would in future be able to download BBC radio and TV programmes from the internet.

The service, the BBC Creative Archive, would be free and available to everyone, as long as they were not intending to use the material for commercial purposes, Mr Dyke added.

“The BBC probably has the best television library in the world,” said Mr Dyke, who was speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival.

“Up until now this huge resource has remained locked up, inaccessible to the public because there hasn’t been an effective mechanism for distribution.

“But the digital revolution and broadband are changing all that.”

A few real quick items (my shortened summer session class is a huge time sucker right now, so posting will be sparse until after the Fourth):

1. By some fluke of Blogger, Kevin’s most recent post was retroactively published on Monday, despite him having not hit the button to do so until yesterday. So, travel back in time a whole five days and check out his post on the BBC Archives. Update: Thanks to advice form Noz in comments, I’ve sent Kevin’s post into the future! Now I need to recharge my flux capacitor.
2. I haven’t written much lately about my novel or my writing in general. That will be amended in the weeks to come, so for those who are interested in novel-related ramblings, keep your pants on (or take them off, whichever is more comfortable for you).
3. I’ve been pining for a new iPod, ever since mine was stolen. I decided to get one of the new mini iPods (the silver one) but alas, everywhere on planet Earth is sold out and backordered by two to four weeks. Oh, lament my poor soul! If you are touched by my sob story, you can donate to the Library tech fund (the paypal button on the sidebar). If you donate ten bucks or more, I’ll e-mail you an original short story or snail mail you a mix CD, your choice (just e-mail me and tell me which one you want).
4. Kevin and I are going to see Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight. So there should be at least one review of it up here in the coming day or two.
5. So, the other day, this guy cuts me off on the beltway and so I pull up beside him, roll my window down and yell,”Fuck you!” and then he yells back, “No, Fuck you!” and then theSsecret Service agents pulled me over because the guy who cut me off was Dick Cheney. Man, what a prick.