The holdings are a mixture of commercial and non-commercial products. Highlights include:
- 14,000 popular music videos
- 9,000 television programmes (BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4) recorded off-air 1985-1999
- Original interview footage for the oral history-based television series Labour of Love (1993) and Forbidden Britain (1994)
- Extensive interviews on video with Holocaust survivors
- The complete rehearsal and performance video archive of theatre company Forced Entertainment
- Video recordings of ethnomusicologists Rolf Killius and Jean Jenkins
- A growing collection of silent cinema on DVD
Small amounts of moving image material are held in other departments. Moving images are also a part of the Endangered Archives programme. There is no legal deposit agreement in the UK for moving images, and though occasional video materials accompany books or documents obtained by the British Library under legal deposit, the majority of moving images are acquired by individual curators by donation and purchase.
The British Library is planning to install a digital video management system which will record, store and deliver onsite access to television and radio news programmes recorded off-air. This is expected to become a public service in late 2011.
You can follow what's happening with the British Library and moving images through the Moving Image blog.
Other resources
Materials held by the British Library that relate to moving images are extensive. The collection is naturally strong for books on film and television, and for trade journals and periodicals, held in Newspapers. There are personal papers (for example, the Dilys Powell, Terence Rattigan and Lord Olivier collections) in Manuscript Collections, business records and patents in the Business & IP Centre, and film music scores in the Music Collections, including Vaughan Williams, Humphrey Searle and Francis Chagrin. Specialist collections exist within some departments e.g. Slavonic and East European Collection’s resources for the study of Russian and Soviet cinema. The Sound Archive has a comprehensive collection of film music, totalling over 22,500 recordings. There are also holdings reflecting a wider screen heritage, such as magic lanterns slides held in Asia, Pacific & African Collections.
Accessing the collection
The moving image holdings of the Sound Archive are listed on the Sound Archive catalogue. Select the Advanced Search option, then use the Format option (DVD video, DVD-R, Film, Laserdisc or Videotape) to limit searches to moving image materials. Alternatively, search for moving image content using Explore the British Library.
Viewings are organised through the Listening and Viewing Service. A British Library Reader's Pass is required, and appointments have to be booked in advance.
Further information
Moving Image
The British Library
96 Euston Road
London
NW1 2DB
UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 7412 7442
Fax: +44 (0)20 7412 7441
E-mail: movingimage@bl.uk
