Log it or lose it: the London Documentation Seminar

BBC Information and Archives hosted a seminar on behalf of the Documentation Commission of FIAT/IFTA on 7th and 8th of May this year. The subject under discussion was the changing role of Archives in the world of digital production and the techniques necessary to manage digital objects.

Those of us organising the seminar were keen to attract a wide range of participants. The title for the seminar proved rather tricky. I advocated "Log it or lose it" but in the end we settled for "Digital Workflow Through Production and Documentation". Any fears that the seminar might be undersubscribed because of a difficult title evaporated when the registration forms started to arrive. At one stage it seemed that the demand would exceed the capacity of our chosen venue which can cater for a maximum of one hundred delegates. Including speakers, we had ninety delegates at the seminar. Our original target had been fifty. Delegates came from all over Europe, including Poland, Croatia and Slovenia. We also had delegates from North America. Staff from BBC Information and Archives also attended the seminar.

Some delegates had asked if a tour of the BBC's archives was possible before the seminar. We arranged for a tour of the Windmill Road site in Brentford for the afternoon of the 6th May. To our surprise, sixty delegates were prepared to arrive a day early to make the visit. When we picked them up from their hotel, one member of the public tried to join us on our coach as he thought it looked an interesting outing. The site at Windmill Road holds the majority of the Television and Radio archives and also some of the music collections. The main archive technical areas for TV and Radio are located on the site, along with cataloguing, intake (accessioning) and research staff. On arrival, we divided the delegates into three groups for the tour. Unfortunately some delegates arrived late after a very difficult journey, and we finished the afternoon with four separate tours simultaneously touring the site. The tour seemed to be a great success and we only managed to lose one delegate, albeit temporarily, in the film stores.

The seminar was held in the BBC Conference Centre at 35 Marylebone High Street. The BBC was well represented in the line-up of speakers. David Bradshaw of R&D spoke about the EBU/SMPTE task force on Metadata and Mel Martin, Project Director of ENPS, gave a highly effective demonstration of ENPS to an intensely interested audience. Chris Wilkie of I&A closed the first day with a compelling argument for the added value of archive cataloguing. Other speakers on the first day included Burkhard Neidecker-Lutz of Digital and Ulla Kreuder of SWF on the latest developments in the Euromedia project. Eva-Lis Green of SVT described the developments in workflow in SVT and the role of the archive in the company's information strategy. Michael Day of the UK Office for Library and Information Networking explained the current metadata initiatives in the wider library world.

On the final day, a work in progress report on the BBC Media Data Project was given by three speakers: Carol Owens from Production, David Chan from IS&T and Richard Hopper of PMS. Francis Galliano described the BBC's Digital Archive Project. Ulrich Booms of Spiegel On-Line discussed the possibilities for Internet TV but he felt that the technology and the business model were not yet in place to make this a success. Following an update from Bill Christmas of Surrey University on the work of the MPEG 7 work group, Ed Tan of the Vrije University of Amsterdam gave his forecast on the likelihood of automatic video indexing. Peter Cox, Head of BBC Information and Archives, formally closed the seminar. I had a drink, relieved that no major disasters had happened.

The seminar was considered a great success by the delegates and they were very complimentary about the overall quality of the speakers. It also succeeded because of the effort put into organising the seminar by Gösta Johansson, FIAT/IFTA's administrative secretary and because of the energy and enthusiasm of the BBC Information and Archives staff, especially Louise Stannard, Charmian Martin, Veronica Mwondela and Louise Mantle. I would also like to thank the staff at 35MHS for their expertise in coping with unpredictable technical requirements for the presentations and for the smooth running of the catering and hospitality arrangements.

As we left on Friday afternoon, members of FIAT/IFTA were planning to hold the seminar again. I don't mind where it is held, as long as it is not London.

Adam Lee
BBC Information and Archives
Member of the Documentation Commission of FIAT/IFTA