B • U • F • V • CBritish UniversitiesFilm & Video Council

promoting moving pictures and related

media for higher/further education and research

B • U • F • V • CBritish UniversitiesFilm & Video Council

Luke McKernan

B • U • F • V • C quality services to support the use of moving pictures

and related media in higher and further education

• specialist information

• courses, conferences and screenings

• online databases and services

• quarterly magazine, guides and books

• videocassette copies of broadcast television

• online sources of moving pictures & sound

• encodings of moving pictures for local use

British Universities Newsreel Database

(BUND)• Database of 160,000 British cinema newsreel stories• BUND based on principle of context• The film of itself is meaningless, or can have false

meaning placed upon it, without an understanding of the conditions under which it was made

• A newsreel was made by a company, working under particular conditions, responsive to particular news values, responsive to particular economic pressures

• It was filmed by someone, edited by someone, commented on by someone, shown to the audience of its time

• Cataloguing data, documentation, background history, all support understanding of the film itself

B • U • F • V • C

B • U • F • V • C quality services to support the use of moving pictures

and related media in higher and further education

BUNDBritish Universities Newsreel Database

B • U • F • V • C quality services to support the use of moving pictures

and related media in higher and further education

BUNDBritish Universities Newsreel Database

Newsfilm Online• Traditionally difficult to access either data or

the newsfilms themselves from commercial television news owners

• In 2001 Independent Television News (ITN) indicated willingness to co-operate with education

• ITN Archive holds over 130,000 hours of newsfilm, from 1896 to present day

• Interest led to ten-month ‘scoping study’ examining ITN collection from an educational perspective

• Successful bid to CSR2 digitisation fund to encode 3,000 hours of ITN newsfilm

• Programme over thirty months, ending late 2006

• All selected items to be downloadable and editable, designed for educational re-use, ‘in perpetuity’

Newsfilm Online

• How to select 3,000 hours out of 130,000?• Select firstly according to date and type of broadcast• Problem of third party materials• Offer users both complete database and materials

‘packaged’ according to curriculum needs• Insist on context - news stories as part of a bulletin,

data on production, events and personalities• Privileged access to universities and colleges only

through authentication software• Further protection through Digital Onscreen Graphic• ITN, and earlier example of British Pathe,

demonstrate how commercial archives can serve a public access agenda, to the benefit of everyone

B • U • F • V • C

B • U • F • V • C

Newsfilm Online

• 650 hours Channel 4 News and News at Ten (1982-2005) at average rate of 10 mins selected material per day

• 400 hours News at Ten (1968-1982) at rate of 10 mins selected material per day

• 100 hours of Roving Report, etc (1957-1967)• 400 hours of ITN (1955-1967) selected at 10

mins per daily edition• 600 hours of Gaumont newsreels (1920-1959),

complete bi-weekly issues, 9 mins per issue• 225 hours of Reuters/Visnews news agency

material• 150 hours of unreleased material• 500 hours remainder for requested themes

Newsfilm Online

• Database structure – the bulletin, the story and the section

• Dublin core and PABs

Newsfilm Online

• Packages or full-on database

Newsfilm Online

• QuickTime• Moviemaker

Newsfilm Online

• Documentation• Other contexts• Reference work

Newsfilm Online

• Education usage – who did we speak to and who is this for?

Newsfilm Online

• Working with a commercial partner

B • U • F • V • C quality services to support the use of moving pictures

and related media in higher and further education

www.bufvc.ac.uk/itnstudy

Luke McKernanHead of Information

British Universities Film & Video Council

77 Wells Street, London, W1T 3QJ

020 7393 1508

luke@bufvc.ac.uk