The U.K. members of EMHIS are also engaged in discussions about media archives and how those might be made more accessible. Hugh Chignell chairs a group called the “UK Radio Archives Advisory Committee” and on May 21st there was a meeting at the British Library to discuss a report on improving access to historic BBC archives.
The report “Academic requirements for pre-1989 BBC archive content” by Richard Hewett has been published in late 2014. Kate Terkanian and Katy Homden also attended the meeting and although nothing particular was decided it was agreed that there is a genuine need for better access to archives, and especially historic radio, and also that a lot of important material is already online if extremely difficult to find!
British sound archivists are very aware of European, and especially
Scandinavian, archive practice and Heidi Svømmekjær and Bente Larsen from Denmark have spoken previously about the LARM-project (mass digitisation of Danish radio) at the British Library.
Hugh