Moving images and sound recordings are still relatively little used as support to teaching and learning in comparison to other, more established, digital resources such as images and text material. However, they do offer great potential for being exploited in innovative ways within teaching and students work, as well as, of course, research.
The digitisation of key sections of the London Broadcasting Company/Independent Radio News (LBC/IRN) archive, the most important commercial radio archive in the UK, offers over 3000 hours of news and current affairs between 1973-1990s, which often present a different approach to state-funded (BBC) radio programmes.
On the LBC/IRN web site one can download a brief but useful paper by Dr Hugh Chignell, of Bournemouth University, who’s been associated with the project since its inception, on suggestions for how the archive can be used by teachers and students, (Chignell, H., 2009. LBC/IRN Archive Teaching and Learning Case Study. Poole: Bournemouth University. (Unpublished))
In his introduction, Dr Chignell highlights some general points before delving into more detail:
-The archive is important both in terms of content (especially news and current affairs coverage of political, economic, social and cultural events and developments) and for also for production techniques employed (including interviews, vox pops, phone-ins, reportage and rolling news).
– The online resource lends itself to student centred learning in which the student can explore the archive using the search and key word functions. […]
– Perhaps the most exciting archive-based student projects will include examples of audio which have been downloaded and then edited and incorporated into a web based report with audio examples, possibly within a multimedia product.
Dr Chignell then proceeds to suggest some key themes of the period covered in the archive that can be traced through the recordings, such as:
– the election and politics of Margaret Thatcher
– the Miners’ strike
– issues relating to Health and AIDS
– others issues of social relevance such as Marriage.
This project was funded by the JISC Digitisation programme and delivered by Bournemouth University in collaboration with BUFVC.
Other sound and moving images projects funded by the JISC Digitisation programme are the British Library Archival Sound Recording, and the British Film Institute’s InView project.