'Digital Public Archives' discussion

Recently faculty and students on the MA Digital Asset Management programme had a great discussion with parts of the BBC Research and Development group about their BBC World Service Radio Archive Prototype project. The discussion was facilitated by  Michael Takeo Magruder (Artist and Researcher, Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London).

Mark Flashman and Zillah Watson from the BBC’s Internet Research & Future Services team presented two approaches to digital audio archiving: BBC Radio 4’s “Letter From America by Alistair Cooke” archive and the BBC World Service Radio Archive Prototype research, which demonstrates their recent technical advancements and user experience of the archives.

The presentation was particularly relevant to MA Digital Asset Management students studying the Crowds and Clouds module. Dr Tobias Blanke module convenor noted: “The project is an excellent showcase of the combination of cloud computing to process audio/video recordings using speech recognition technologies and of crowds to support and enhance the processing”.