BBC Archives

The BBC Archives are collections documenting the BBC's broadcasting history, including copies of television and radio broadcasts, internal documents, photographs, online content, sheet music, commercially available music, BBC products (including toys, games, merchandise, books, publications, and programme releases on VHS, Beta, Laserdisc, DVD, vinyl, audio cassette, audio book CD, and Blu-ray), press cuttings, artefacts and historic equipment.[1] The original contents of the collections are permanently retained, but are in the process of being digitised. Some collections have been uploaded to the BBC Archives section of the BBC Online website for visitors to view. The archive is one of the largest broadcast archives in the world, with over 15 million items.

Overview

The BBC Archives encompass numerous collections containing materials produced and acquired by the BBC. The earliest material dates back to 1890.[2] The archives contain 15 million items on 60 miles of shelving spread over several sites, and include approximately 1 million hours of playable media.[2] Items are managed using a bar code system for locating stored items and tracking items that have been lent out.[2]

Sound Archive

The BBC Sound Archive contains the archived output from the BBC's radio output. Widespread recordings exist in the archive from the mid-1930s, when recording of programmes and speeches were kept for rebroadcast; the catalyst for this was the launch of the BBC Empire Service in 1932 and the subsequent rebroadcast of speeches from political leaders at a time convenient in the different time zones.[14] Prior to this, the broadcast of recordings was seen as being false to the listener and was avoided.[15]

Any recordings made were frequently disposed of and it was the efforts of Marie Slocombe, who founded the Sound Archive in 1937 when she retained recordings of prominent figures in the country, that the archive became into being officially when she was appointed the Sounds Recording Librarian in 1941.[16]

Today, all of the BBC's radio output is recorded for re-use,[17] with approximately 66% of output being preserved in the Archives;[17] programmes involving guests or live performances from artists are kept,[17] whereas programmes in which the DJ plays commercially available music are only sampled and not kept entirely.[17] Prior to any material being disposed of, the material is offered to the British Library Sound Archive.[13]

The archive consists of multiple formats including wax cylinders,[18] numerous gramophone records made from both shellac and vinyl,[19] as well as numerous more recordings on tape, CD and on digital audio tape (DAT).[20] The difficulty of these different formats is the availability of the machines required to play them; some of the records in the archive are 16 inches in diameter and require large phonograph units to play,[19] while the players for the wax cylinders and DATs are no longer in production.[20] There are also 700,000 vinyl records, 180,000 78 rpm records, 400,000 LP records and 350,000 CDs in the archive.[21]

The Radio Digital Archive has been capturing radio programmes as broadcast quality wav files since 2008, with over 1.5 million recordings, a number growing daily.

Some of the wax cylinder collection has been donated to the British Library.

The Sound Archive is based at the BBC Archive Centre in Perivale, along with the television archive, and was previously based at Windmill Road, Brentford.

native name	BBC Archives
native name lang	en-gb
country of origin	United Kingdom
owner	BBC

Overview

Buildings

Television Archive

Sound Archive

Written Archives

Photographic Library

Archive Treasure Hunt

Creative Archive Licence

Voices from the Archives

Heritage Collection

Programme Catalogue

See also

External links

BBC Archives

References