Connected Histories of the BBC: Opening up the BBC Oral History Archive to the Digital Domain

Abstract

This article describes the computational and data-related challenges of the “Connected Histories of the BBC” project, an interdisciplinary project aiming to bring into the public realm some of the hidden treasures of the BBC's own Oral History Archive through the creation of an openly accessible, fully searchable and interconnected digital catalogue of this archive. This project stands as an interesting case study on the tensions between “computational” and “archival”, by critically designing and employing computational approaches for an historical, complex Oral History collection of scattered analogue records of various forms with an archival pre-history. From data acquisition, modeling, structuring and enhancement, metadata, data analysis procedures, to web design and legal issues, this paper discusses the various computational challenges, processes and decisions made during this project, while showcasing the principles of (re)usability, accessibility, and collaboration throughout its course.